Not everyone felt the effects of the fiscal crisis last year: Some state workers more than tripled their salaries with massive amounts of overtime.

Three employees actually topped $100,000 in extra pay alone, and four exceeded $90,000, the state controller’s office says.

“It’s a lot of money,” said Lise Bang-Jensen, an analyst for the Empire Center for Public Policy. “It begs the question, is the state managing its workforce effectively? Overtime is inevitable, but it shouldn’t be routine.”

Half of the top-20 list came from the prison system, including eight nurses from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester county.

Department of Correctional Services spokesman Erik Kriss said higher salaries offered by private hospitals make it difficult to recruit nurses, leading to the big overtime payouts.

The state OT queen last year was Mercy Mathew, a nurse at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, whose total earnings topped $200,000. She worked 2,551 extra hours, which is the equivalent of about 64 regular 40-hour workweeks.

“I don’t understand how she eats, sleeps, does she live there?” Bang-Jensen said. “Besides the money it costs, a real concern is what kind of care can someone provide working so many hours.”

The OT runnerup was Robert Henry, a treatment assistant at Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center in New Hampton.

Henry, 2008’s state overtime leader, raked in $113,546 on top of his $56,710 base salary for a grand total of $170,256.

A state employee since 1983, he’s made nearly $1 million in extra pay over the past 11 years.

The bronze medalist was Carolyn Carroll, a nurse who works with Mathew at Bedford Hills. She pulled in $105,121 for 1,818 extra hours on top of her $56,217 base salary.

Carroll and Mathew declined comment. Henry couldn’t be reached.

Critics note that veteran workers can use the overtime to boost their pension payouts.

Despite the big bucks gobbled up by some workers, total overtime for the state dropped to $433.3 million last year, a 7% dip from 2008 and a 10% drop from the record $481.6 million in 2007.

The Department of Correctional Services spent the most of any agency, $91.8million, a 2.1% drop from 2008.

The state police parceled out $29.9 million in OT last year, a 19% decline – and the biggest drop among major agencies.

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