Chief Rilling announced that the police department has used about 65 percent of its overtime budget and we are not at the fiscal year midpoint. Of course, it might be helpful to know if the overtime was the result of one-time events, a trend or how it compares to same period in previous years. This type of basic analysis is something that it seems would be important in the sixth largest city in Connecticut, but strangely always seems to be missing form budget presentations.
Which is the reason why this article popped up in today’s Hour. Since we are at the start of budget planning for fiscal 08-09, department heads are rallying up the rhetoric on why increases are needed. For the most part, increasing staff to deal with new demands placed on departments is entirely justifiable. But in this case, the police budget, as run by Rilling deserves a much closer look.
As I drive around town at night, and see our new Police cruisers manning the CL & P, invasive digs, I wonder why there are so many new police cruisers out there idling away. Is CL & P paying all the overtime and use of those police cruisers? And what’s the priority for the department, overtime staffing for Cl & P, or scheduling staff appropriately in the first place? What hours of the day is the overtime being paid out in? Those are my questions at least. The Hour’s Robert Koch reports:
The department is funded for 176 officers now, with an authorized strength of 182. In the next 18 months, the mayor and chief hope the funded number will be 179.
But even though 176 are funded, there are only 167 serving — and seven of those are in the police academy, Rilling said.There have been a slew of vacancies in recent years, mainly due to planned retirements under the Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP, which allows police to collect retirement payments while still on the force in lieu of some later benefits and requires them to retire a maximum of five years after opting in to the plan. Qualified candidates to fill empty positions have been difficult to find.
Moccia added funding for three officers after being elected in 2005 to his first two-year term, and five officers returned to patrol after the combined dispatch center was civilianized last year.
In every year except one (2002-03) since 2001-02, the police department has overstepped its approved overtime budget, according to figures from Donna Castracane, city assistant director of management and budgets. Last year, the overrun was more than $700,000 and the year before that it was more than $1.3 million.
Last year, the police department spent $2,146,733 on overtime, a 14 percent decrease from overtime spending the year before. The approved overtime budget last year was $1,442,498.
This year’s approved budget includes a $148,956 increase in overtime wages over last year’s approved budget, according to the police budget as published on the city’s Web site.
Rilling, like other department heads, was required to submit his budget request for 2008-09 to city Finance Director Thomas Hamilton by Nov. 30. The chief declined to release the details of his budget request.
City Board of Estimate and Taxation Chairman Fred Wilms said police overtime spending is “one of our most difficult challenges” because on one hand, board members want to keep taxes as low as possible while on the other hand, “we all want to live in a city that has a low crime rate, and where the police department has all of the tools they need to protect us.
“We want to see crime keep going down and so we want to support the police wherever we can but overtime has been a recurring issue,” he said. “For the last few years it’s been a real challenge to try to manage the overtime spending of the police department. The chief has done a great job. I feel he’s been very mindful of overtime spending. But it’s not something that can be solved right away.”
Over the past two years or so, the trend has been to transfer excess funds from the regular wage account to cover overtime, Wilms said.
Last year, asset forfeiture money was also used to cover overtime “and I think that’s a welcome development,” he said.
One solution to the problem is adding more officers to the force, Wilms said,
“We’ve been moving in that direction from a budgetary perspective,” he said. “In the past two years we’ve increased funding for additional officers.”
He added that the DROP “has really had a huge impact on the force and cost the city a lot of money. I wish it had never been implemented.”
Rilling said he will have a budget review Dec. 18 with the finance department, which will forward its recommendations to the Board of Estimate and Taxation. The board is slated to meet with the police department in January, Rilling said.
source: The Hour New officers may be sought to curb overtime spending by Robert Koch, December 10, 2007
