Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's administration announced today that it has decided to suspend four members of the city's Bureau of Environmental Services for taking inappropriate overtime payments.

Public Works Director Guy Costa, who oversees that bureau, has also been suspended for one day for failing to act quickly enough on the matter, and he said he may reconsider his employment with the city because of the way the news reached him.

Mr. Costa, who has headed the department for nine years, said he learned of his suspension when his 18-year-old son woke him last night and said he learned of it on a KDKA-TV news report.

"I'm very disappointed with how this was dealt with. Not the suspension, but how it was dealt with," said Mr. Costa. "It was handled improperly by someone in the mayor's office. I have an idea of who it is, and that will be dealt with in the future. . . . I would hope that the mayor would discipline the person who leaked this information to the news media.

"I think the mayor knows who it is, and I think he should ask for that person's resignation."

He said he knew the other city employees were being suspended but wasn't told of his own punishment until a reporter called him about it.

"The time will come. I don't know why that person did what they did, but you know the old saying: Payback's a [expletive].

"There are people who do not want me in this position," said Mr. Costa. They may now get their way. "I feel blindsided. I've given nine years to this department, and this just isn't right."

He did not rule out a run for mayor.

"Everything's going to be on the table at this time," he said. "People have asked me to look at the political field."

Assistant Public Works Director William Klimovich, who runs the Bureau of Environmental Services, will get a 10-day suspension for allowing the overtime payments to occur, and for taking $400 in extra pay himself.

"Assistant Director Klimovich was trying to look for a way to look out for his folks," said Art Victor, the city's Director of Operations. He "certainly knew it was improper. . . . Ten days is a serious hit."

All of the employees, he said, "did work the hours that they were paid for." But they are not permitted to get overtime under city rules.

Discovered by Mr. Costa in June 2007 in an audit, and first reported in the media in February, the overtime payments resulted in an Office of Municipal Investigations review. Mr. Ravenstahl told the Post-Gazette in June that he had the OMI report on his desk but had not yet decided to act on it.

The other employees are Program Supervisor Leonard J. Huggins, Refuse Collection Supervisor Daniel W. Lewis, and Refuse Collection Supervisor Richard W. Williams .

All will have to pay back the overtime received. The supervisors will each be suspended for four days.

The administration distributed a breakdown of the overtime received, indicating that it ranged from the $400 for Mr. Klimovich to $9,743 for Mr. Lewis and that it totaled $15,871. That information, though, is at odds with information supplied by the Personnel Department, which indicated that the employees got $27,438 in premium pay in 2006 and 2007.