Boston police dropped overtime hours by 14.6 percent for 3 months. More is still needed to meet budget goal, officials say.
City councilors need to effectively save $24.5 million in overtime expenses to meet a total spending target of $48 million.
Boston police were able to reduce overtime hours by 14.6 percent between July and late September compared to those months last year, but more cutbacks are needed to meet the city’s budget goal of capping the extra pay spending at $48 million this year, officials said Monday.
According to city councilors, the police force is not on track to meet that number.
“The commitment in the last budget cycle to realize a percentage of savings, based on what I’m hearing today, doesn’t look like we’re actually going to actualize that commitment, which I think is concerning,” Councilor Andrea Campbell said, The Boston Globe reports.
In June, councilors passed a $3.6 billion operating budget from Mayor Marty Walsh, who included a $12 million cut — about 20 percent — of the police overtime budget. The savings would go toward mental health services, trauma and counseling services, programs for minority and women-owned businesses, housing support, and other initiatives.
However, councilors learned in July that officials would need to cut more than that to reach their $48 million total overtime spending target.
Overtime spending is legally allowed to surpass its annual allotted amount, and frequently does. While the city budgeted $60 million in the 2020 fiscal year, the department actually spent about $72.5 million.
To meet its maximum spending goal for this fiscal year, the city would have to effectively save about $24.5 million — not just $12 million.
“For that to actually become a reality, we need to stay on top of it,” Councilor Matt O’Malley said Monday, the Globe reports.
Reducing overtime costs by 14.6 percent would put police on track to saving only $10.5 million, said Councilor Kenzie Bok, chair of the council’s Ways and Means Committee.
According to Boston police Superintendent James Hasson, police had a “pretty comprehensive plan” to make the needed overtime cuts. Yet, with an uptick in violent crime, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, demonstrations, and the speculated civil unrest surrounding the recent election, the department has not been able to put that plan in practice, he said.
“The residents of Boston, they depend on us,” he said. “When they call 9-1-1, they have an expectation we’re going to be coming.”
A major force behind overtime spending is the open positions the department must fill every day — 94 on average — left empty by officers out on injury, illness, or vacation, police said in July.
According to the Globe, the cost to replace those officers was over $25 million last year. This year, those expenses remain “relatively flat” and make up nearly 44 percent of overtime costs, reports police provided councilors Monday showed.
Police have continued “to face the challenge in which our turnover of injured officers has been as frequent of those returning to work due to the increase in demand for full staffing levels and extended hours, coupled with the impact of COVID-19,” the reports say.
In July, the department said another avenue to save costs, among others, could lie in hiring civilians to work administrative positions currently performed by approximately 80 to 100 sworn officers, but that change requires negotiations with police unions.
Get Boston.com's browser alerts:
Enable breaking news notifications straight to your internet browser.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com