"We've made real efforts to bring the overtime down, " Chief Warshaw said. Miami Beach Police have also made strides to cut down on overtime abuse. They beefed up their court liaison office and computerized their overtime reporting system.

New steps taken When The Herald started making inquiries about Collars for Dollars, the police departments again took steps to curtail the abuse of court overtime. Metro Police opened an Internal Affairs investigation at their Doral district. Metro also stepped up installation of an internal computer tracking system that should catch potential cheaters. Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Barreto sent a memo to his department last week in anticipation of the Herald series. He said he had strengthened the review of arrest reports to ensure that only officers necessary to the prosecution of a case would be listed. The department is also planning to offer refresher classes in roadside testing so all officers can do the tests. "While we have accomplished a great deal, much work remains in the area of court overtime, " Barreto wrote. "For a Police Officer to misuse and manipulate the system and accept overtime when it was not necessary to a prosecution or not actually earned is wrong. This is a violation of departmental policy, and might also be a violation of law." Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said the Herald inquiry forced everybody in the system to examine how they were doing their jobs. "I guess nobody really sat down and looked at the system as a whole, and exposed it for what it was, " she said. "I suppose a system developed that allowed this abuse."

A TELLING ICON MIAMI BEACH POLICE COURT OVERTIME SLIPS USED TO INCLUDE A PICTURE OF A MONEY BAG ON THE LINE WHERE OFFICERS WROTE THE NUMBER OF HOURS THEY WERE TO BE PAID FOR COURT APPEARANCES. IF AN OFFICER CHOSE TIME OFF INSTEAD, THAT LINE WAS MARKED BY A HAMMOCK. BUT TOP BRASS CHANGED THE FORMS SOMETIME IN 1995. "I DIDN'T THINK EITHER WAS APPROPRIATE, " BEACH MAJOR STEVE ROBBINS SAID. "I KNEW AT SOME POINT, SOME REPORTER WOULD CALL ME AND SAY WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" HOW MUCH MONEY COULD BE SAVED? IF THE PILOT PROGRAM EXPANDS THROUGHOUT COUNTY COURT, POLICE DEPARTMENTS PROJECT THESE ANNUAL SAVINGS: METRO-DADE $500,000 Miami $342,000 Miami Beach $225,000 TOTAL: $1,067,000 IT ALREADY WORKS IN JUVENILE COURT Metro police already use a standby system in Juvenile Court. It's expected to save the department $445,000 in its first full year.

SOURCES:Police department

WHERE THEY DO IT DIFFERENTLY . . . AND WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT DADE A HERALD SURVEY OF COURTS IN MANHATTAN, LOS ANGELES, CHICAGO, BOSTON, DALLAS, ST. LOUIS, PHOENIX, PORTLAND, ORE., JACKSONVILLE, ORLANDO, ST. PETERSBURG AND BROWARD FOUND NO OTHER SYSTEM THAT OPERATES LIKE DADE'S. DADE IS THE ONLY COUNTY THAT REPEATEDLY SUMMONS OFFICERS TO COURT FOR DUI AND OTHER MISDEMEANOR HEARINGS, EVEN THOUGH THEIR TESTIMONY IS RARELY NEEDED. ST. LOUIS"WOW! THAT MUST BE EXPENSIVE."-- BOB CRADDICK, MISDEMEANOR CHIEF, CIRCUIT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

PHOENIX "Fiscally, clearly [stand-by] is a much better system, no doubt about it. . . . It's my understanding it saved the police department a million or million-two a year, according to the last study that was done." -- Kerry Wangberg, city prosecutor

PORTLAND "An officer is expected to check daily their listing of court appearances, so they know whether a case is actually going or not." -- Officer John Wrigley, Portland Police Department JACKSONVILLE "That would obviously be a lot more paper, a lot more phone calls, a lot more time involved in the case -- and could cause greater chaos. Your officers are sitting around wasting time." -- Tatiana Radi Salvador, misdemeanor chief, state attorney's office

ORLANDO"Subpoenas are issued for every [court] date? They don't have an on-call system? I bet that costs money!" -- Bill Vose, chief assistant state attorney ST. PETERSBURG"Maybe because of our system, we don't have a lot of that [piggy-backing]. In Pinellas County, I can't recall ever seeing a case where I said, 'This is a real inordinate number of people.' "

-- Shawn Crane, misdemeanor chief, state attorney's office BROWARD "Rather than have everybody come in, somebody with a lot of brains years ago decided to go to a standby system. It allows my coordinators to call off all those police officers who were subpoenaed on cases which were continued, and to alert those officers who are on cases that are ready for trial." -- Joel Shulman, witness-liaison director, state attorney's office

CHICAGO "We don't do that. It should be much more expensive doing it that way." -- Peter Troy, traffic division chief, state attorney's office

DALLAS "That could get to be a $100,000-a-year job pretty fast! Goodness, that's sweet. That's an extreme abuse, it really is." -- Rick Jordan, misdemeanor division chief, district attorney's office.

BOSTON "You must wind up paying a ton. Wow. I'm just curious as to how all those officers on a standard [DUI] are going to offer different testimony?" -- Leora Joseph, Boston Municipal Court chief, district attorney's office.