By Nicole Dungca GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 09, 2016

More than 40 percent of overtime paid to Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority workers in the 2015 fiscal year went to employees who didn’t work 40 hours in one week, according to MBTA officials.

Such practices have led the T to launch audits into the agency’s overtime rules, and officials said they are also making moves to cut down on excessive absenteeism.

Brian Shortsleeve, the MBTA’s chief administrator, said cutting unscheduled absences should help drive down overtime costs, which totalled about $75 million in 2015.

“To some extent, absenteeism and overtime are linked,” he said.

The MBTA told its control board recently that an internal auditor at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation would focus on its overtime practices. An outside firm, KPMG, will also review payroll records and time sheets for the workers who earned the most overtime in 2014 and 2015.

The moves come as the MBTA delves into several controversial subjects this year, including fare increases and whether to continue a proposed Green Line extension that has been estimated to be nearly $1 billion over its $2 billion budget.

In recent months, the agency has released more information on increases in overtime hours and unscheduled absences. For example, officials said in December that one employee made more than $315,341 during 2015 — and $171,257 came from overtime.

This week, T officials said the amount of overtime increased from $61 million in 2014 to $75 million the following year. But it appears that the relentless winter in 2015 helped to drive up the costs: Winter weather and emergency operations accounted for about $7.2 million spent on overtime in 2015.

Officials have expressed concern that 43 percent of the overtime in the 2015 fiscal year — or about $31.8 million — was paid to employees who didn’t work a full week. Shortsleeve has said this occurs because overtime for workers is triggered by an eight-hour day, rather than the 40-hour work week, which is more common under state and federal law.

But James O’Brien, the president of the Boston Carmen’s Union, said his workers are often forced to work overtime because the agency is not properly staffed. He also said most of the highest-paid MBTA workers who made more than $100,000 last year were not bus drivers or train operators, but often their managers.

The MBTA audit will determine whether overtime is being issued when it’s considered essential, and whether the overtime has been approved, accurate, and monitored, Shortsleeve said.

We’ve already written about the problems with the Family Medical Leave Act, which allows workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, unscheduled days a year to take care of a serious illness, new child, or sick family member. In the 2014 fiscal year, about 13.2 percent of employee absences were attributed to family and medical leave.

MBTA officials say they’re trying to better monitor that kind of leave: Three people will be hired to manage who uses family and medical leave, and the T will train more than 900 employees in effectively managing employee absences. A contractor will also be hired to operate a call center related to absences.

We’ll likely get more updates on MBTA absenteeism and overtime on Monday.

New commuter rail schedules

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has released its new commuter rail schedules — again.

Officials quietly released new timetables in November and said they would go into effect the following month. But commuters quickly noticed drastic changes in their train departure times and reached out to legislators, who blasted the new timetables and said the MBTA should have reached out to riders for input.

The outcry prompted the T to promise to rearrange the schedules and schedule months of public meetings before putting the new schedules into place.

State Senator Jason Lewis, a Malden Democrat who rallied other legislators to meet with the T, said the new schedules appeared to take some of his constituents’ concerns into account. He also praised the agency for gathering feedback before putting the new schedules into service.

“The whole approach this time around is much more customer-friendly,” he said.

So far, he said, he hasn’t heard much from constituents — but he assumes that is partly because the new schedules haven’t been widely distributed.

“I do expect as more people get a chance to look at them and compare them to the current schedule, that we will get some feedback — both positive and negative,” he said.

You can see the new schedules at the MBTA’s fiscal control board site here and attend several meetings listed on the MTBA’s website to give the agency your feedback.

Nicole Dungca can be reached at nicole.dungca@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @ndungca.