DENVER -- Some high-paid Denver International Airport managers are making thousands of dollars a year plowing Pena Boulevard and DIA parking lots and clocking long hours for overtime on days with no snow, a CALL7 investigation has found.

The 7News investigation prompted the airport and the city auditor to review time cards and other documents to determine whether there were any improprieties in the program. The investigation is on-going.

“Is the voluntary snow team a perk for top managers?” asked CALL7 Investigator Tony Kovaleski.

“No, it is not,” said Ruth Rodriguez, who manages the DIA snow team.

However, during a three-month investigation 7News reviewed hundreds of documents that showed top managers making an average of $51.05 an hour to clear snow on Pena Boulevard and in the airport parking lots when the Colorado Department of Transportation and large municipalities pay plow drivers about half of that hourly rate. A different team clears snow on the runways.

The 61 people on the snow team sign up to be on call when it snows, and they are paid the hourly rate to remove snow -- the same rate they receive at their full-time airport jobs.

Last year, the airport spent $587,065.55 on airport employees overtime to clear snow from the parking lots and Pena Boulevard, and the six top managers took home about 20 percent of that money or $116,895.26.

Those managers made an average of $51 an hour to plow snow while CDOT paid a top rate of $21.12 for plow drivers. The top plow driver rate in the city of Denver is $26.41 and in Aurora is $27.

“The key issue here is safety and reliability,” Rodriguez said.

“So money doesn't matter?” Kovaleski asked.

“Actually in the scheme of things, when one of our partners can lose a million dollars an hour this is a small price to pay," she said.

But one of the DIA snow team members was not even removing snow.

Assistant Deputy Manager of Aviation Dorothy Harris, who made $25,949.19 -- more than $49 an hour -- in snow pay last year, mostly shuttles other members of the snow team around, Kovaleski learned.

“Do you know she is paid the equivalent of more than $100,000 a year to basically serve as a taxi cab driver?” Kovaleski asked.

“I don't think you can look at it that way," Rodriguez answered.

Time cards also show that on March 21 and 22, Harris worked 32 consecutive hours between her regular job and snow team work on days when there was no snow.

“You can't justify somebody working that straight and be efficient," Rodriguez conceded.

Harris, through a DIA spokesman, declined to comment for this story.

Sources and documents show there are problems with snow team members clocking in and then leaving the facility for hours on personal business or for dinner.

But Rodriguez said she does not see that the snow team needs a major revamp.

“Are you going to admit there are problems with the way this program has been managed, or are you going to deny it?” Kovaleski asked.

“Well what I am saying is the structure needs to be tuned up,” she said.

Denver Councilman Charlie Brown and Manager of Aviation Kim Day react Thursday night to the findings of the CALL7 investigation.