Police, Fire Chiefs: Overtime Budgets ​“Unrealistic”

Five weeks into the current fiscal year, the police department’s actual weekly overtime is double what’s in the budget. The fire department’s weekly overtime is one and a half times over budget.

Chiefs of both public safety departments said that, although overtime numbers are always high in the summer, they are already expecting that their departments will exceed their respective overtime budgets for the fiscal year that ends next June 30.

“Realistically, that number is nowhere near a reality,” Police Chief Anthony Campbell said about the $82,936 budgeted for his department’s average weekly overtime costs.

“Not realistic,” said Fire Chief John Alston about the $41,711 budgeted for his department’s average weekly overtime.

Cambell and Alston made those admissions on Monday night during a Board of Alders Finance Committee hearing held in the Aldermanic Chambers on the second floor of City Hall.

Both department chiefs were present to discuss overages in their respective departments’ overtime budgets for the fiscal year that started July 1.

After the hearing, city Chief Administrative Officer Michael Carter, who oversees the police and fire departments, disagreed with the chiefs’ assessments.

“We have challenges because of the retirements and resignations,” he said. ​“I think by the end of the year, with classes coming in and staffing, all different levels of police and fire, they’ll hit their number.”

As Westville Alder and Finance Committee Vice-Chair Adam Marchand explained at the top of the public hearing, alders had included policy amendments in the previous two fiscal years’ budgets that required the public safety chiefs to appear before the Finance Committee whenever their departments exceed their overtime budgets.

Alders did not include that policy amendment in this year’s budget, Marchand said, so Monday night’s hearing was simply a good faith effort by the administration to be transparent about the public safety overtime budget. It did not require any actions on behalf of the aldermanic committee.

The police department’s overtime budget for the fiscal year is $4.3 million. That’s a $270,000 increase over last fiscal year’s police overtime budget, and comes in at just under $83,000 per week on average.

On Monday night, Campell told the alders that the department spent $216,663 on overtime for the week ending Aug. 4, and $228,695 for the week ending July 21.

“The main thing that seems to be generating our overtime right now is our shortage of personnel,” Campbell said. He said the department is currently down 111 officers: 91 police officers, 10 detectives, four sergeants, two lieutenants, and four captains.

Those shortages in patrol are exacerbated by summer vacations and training, he said, which means the department is stretched thin in providing security for summer outdoor events like the Taylor Dane concert on the Green (which cost $10,353 in police overtime) or the Goffe Street Gospel Festival ($9,273).

Furthermore, Campbell said, the department has been devoting extra time for background checks for the academy class set to start on Sep. 17. And, he said, the department had allocated through the beginning of August extra resources to protecting the family of Tyekqua Nesbitt, who was shot and killed by Tramaine Marquese Poole on May 31. (Poole was shot and killed by Virginia state troopers in a highway shootout earlier this month.)

Campbell said the best way to alleviate the overtime overages is to hire more personnel. He said that new training academy classes scheduled for September and for November or December will help, but that the city needs to look into seating even more classes after that. Twenty-eight more officers currently eligible to retire, and another 22 will be eligible come Dec. 7.

Campbell said staff shortages in the department have been exacerbated by recent retirements (including 14 at the end of June), an expired contract that is currently in arbitration, and better-paying suburban neighbors poaching newly minted officers. Expected changes in the city’s police contract are leading officers to retire or to flee for other cities’ departments.

East Rock Alder Anna Festa asked Campbell if the nearly $83,000 weekly overtime budget for the police department is appropriate.

“I’ve always thought that we could get under that if we were fully staffed,” Campbell said. But, he said, with over 100 vacancies and another 50 officers who are or will soon be eligible to retire, ​“realistically, that number is nowhere near a reality.”

Festa asked why the city included that overtime number in the budget if Campbell knows it is unrealistic.

“Part of that has to do with goals,” he said, ​“trying to hit a number based on previous data. But also, the number of people who have left the department since that time of the budgeting, people have been running out the door.”

Festa asked what a more realistic overtime number would be. Campbell said, with the current level of staffing, he expects to spend $125,000 to $150,000 each week in overtime.

That’s in line with what the department actually spent on overtime last fiscal year. The Fiscal Year 2017 – 2018 (FY18) budget projected that the police department would spend $4 million in overtime for the year, or $77,743 per week.

That number was off by a long shot.

According to the city’s June 2018 monthly financial report, the department actually spent $7.16 million last fiscal year on overtime. That’s $137,714 per week, over 1.75 times what had been budgeted. Last year’s late July and early August financial reports show similar weekly actual overtime expenditures in the low-to-mid $200,000 range.

“When you look at comparing New Haven to other cities,” Campbell said, ​“it’s difficult, because New Haven is the city on the hill. It’s the beacon. It’s the light. Everyone comes here. The number of services we provide, you can’t compare to other cities and towns.” He said that in addition to providing public safety for everything from Gospel Fest to the Apt Foundation, the city’s police force has also managed to keep violent crime levels at historic lows, with seven homicides in the city last year. That type of violent crime prevention work, he said, takes a lot of time and, with limited staff, a lot of overtime money.

Plus, he said, New Haven pays its officers well below market rate.

“It’s not simply a matter of recruiting the officers,” he said. ​“It’s retaining them. I lost 22 officers to other towns. We have to find a way to increase the pay, to have incentives for the officers at the end when they’re leaving.”

Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers said that she and the mayor have come to an agreement that they will prioritize getting the police and fire overtime expenditures within budget this fiscal year.

“We just don’t have the money in the city to continue that way,” she said.

She asked the chiefs to do everything they can to stay within the weekly overtime allotments provided for in the budget.

Overtime Underfunded

Chief Alston made a similar pitch to the alders, describing a fire department overtime budget that is consistently underfunded and understaffed according to current contract staffing minimums.

“Our overtime budget is not a realistic number based on the current contract,” he said. ​“We are looking at areas to improve that.”

The current fire contract, which expired at the end of June, requires a minimum of 72 firefighters to be on day every day and every night.

That minimum staffing requirement, he said, combined with 43 vacancies in the department last year, resulted in significant overtime overages so far this fiscal year.

He shared an overtime breakdown with the alders that showed that the fire department spent around $100,000 per week each of the last two weeks of July, and over $168,000 during the first week of August.

That weekly overtime number plummeted to just under $66,000 for the week ending Aug. 10, Alston said, thanks to the seating of 38 newly trained firefighters on Aug. 3. But he is still staring down a staffing hole, he said, thanks to the recent promotions of 14 firefighters to the lieutenant rank and another six recent retirements.

Alston said he worked to add a billing code to this year’s budget that will allow his department to track any revenue that it brings in. But, he said, the city underfunded his overtime budget this year, and has done so for the fire department for at least the past seven years.

“$43,000 per week is an unrealistic number, especially for the summer,” he said. ​“During the summer, you’re looking at about $80,000 for a department this size.”

The fire department’s overall overtime budget for the fiscal year is $2,169,000, or $41,711 per week. According to the city’s June 2018 monthly financial report, the fire department exceeded its $1.86 million overtime budget by $2.8 million, spending over $89,000 per week as opposed to the budgeted $36,000.

Alston said one problem with accurately projecting non-fire-suppression overtime for the year is that his department is not always sure which events are run by the city, which are sponsored by the city, and which are simply within the city. And, therefore, which ones he can expect reimbursements on, and which overtime costs he simply has to eat.

He said he routinely gets requests from alders and other city event organizers to send a fire truck and a smokehouse to an event. He said he can send an on duty truck at no overtime expense, but the smokehouse requires Local 71 bringing the apparatus and requires paying four people overtime, sometimes three or four times a weekend over the course of the summer.

Click on the links below to read other stories about the city’s structural deficit and ideas for closing it.

• Hey, Buddy, Can You Spare $30 Million?
• Fixing the Budget: Fire Choices
• Old Debt Plugs Old $10M Shortfall
• Record Bond Sale OK’d; Discipline Vowed
• Like Hartford, New Haven ​“Scoops & Tosses”
• S&P Downgrades City Credit Rating
• City Will Refinance Debt To Avoid Takeover
• S&P Downgrades City Credit Rating
• Mayor Open To Idea Of Fewer Top Cops
• City Ends Policy As It Begins To Pay Off