A Civil Beat investigation in November revealed excessive overtime at the Honolulu Road Maintenance Division, including a small group of workers who made more in overtime than regular pay.

After publishing a series of articles based on a review of two years of overtime records, we approached Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, City Council members and City Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro for their reactions and input.

At the time, Carlisle said he was “not happy” about the reports and promised to look into the issue. Five weeks after Civil Beat contacted Kaneshiro for comment, the prosecutor sent us an e-mail saying there is a pending investigation.

Here’s Kaneshiro’s entire response:

“As a general rule, the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney cannot comment on a pending investigation. That would apply in this case.”

The prosecutor’s office said it could not provide any other details.

Civil Beat found some city road division employees logged more than 1,200 overtime hours in one year and found the division consistently overspent its overtime budgets in recent years. We also found possible double-charging, with workers claiming overtime twice on the same day for different jobs performed at overlapping times.

Civil Beat ran the following articles about overtime use at the city’s Road Maintenance Division:

• Road to Riches Part 1: Overtime at City Road Division
• Road to Riches Part 2: City Workers Claimed 5,525 Overtime Hours for Illegal Stream Dumping
• Road to Riches Part 3: Getting Paid for Overtime Work — Twice
• Carlisle ‘Not Happy’ About Excessive Overtime Use by City Workers

Last year, criminal charges were filed against a street-sweeping supervisor in the same Road Maintenance Division for allegedly verifying false overtime claims for himself and three other employees, who paid him kickbacks, a story first reported by KITV.

The supervisor pleaded no contest in October and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine at his sentencing next month.