An audit of San Francisco police extra time spending discovered repeated violations of limits set by division coverage and the legislation, costing the town tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
Extra time has quadrupled from about $19.2 million in fiscal 2018-19 to about $80.1 million in fiscal 2022-23.
The audit additionally questioned the effectiveness of additional deployments within the Tenderloin and Union Sq., saying they hadn’t confirmed efficient in decreasing crime or 911 response instances. It really helpful that police provide you with strategies for evaluating the technique, which it at present doesn’t have.
The evaluation by the town’s Price range and Legislative Analyst coated 5 years between the fiscal 12 months that began in 2018 and the one which resulted in 2023. The Board of Supervisors requested for the audit in June 2023.
The report discovered weekly and yearly limits set by legislation and division coverage had been routinely exceeded with out consequence, breakdowns occurred within the approval course of for extra time requests, and there was a cycle of officers taking sick days on a constant foundation that induced different officers to cowl their shifts by working extra time.
It additionally discovered that some officers who took extreme sick depart nonetheless labored extra time assignments for personal and particular occasions, often known as 10B shifts.
Auditors faulted a small group of officers for a disproportionate quantity of extra time, writing, “12 percent of sworn staff who worked overtime accounted for 32 percent of SFPD’s total overtime hours. We also identified high users of overtime who consistently work the equivalent of 80-hour work weeks every week of the year, in some cases for multiple years in a row.”
The audit stated officers routinely took sick days on the primary or final day of their work week or known as out of weekend shifts, requiring different officers to work extra time and contributing to “backfill,” or filling out a schedule with a brief employees.
Total, we discovered an absence of each inside and exterior accountability for extra time restrict violations and extreme extra time at SFPD. The Division has not taken adequate steps to implement its extra time limits, and violations usually don’t end in penalties or corrective motion.
San Francisco Price range and Legislative Analyst
Sick and damage depart elevated 77% in the course of the five-year interval, with the typical officer taking greater than 25 days off in fiscal 2022-23. The backfill downside was made worse by a coverage that enables officers to swap extra time pay for further paid day without work.
The report additionally stated officers who took extreme sick time, which it outlined as greater than 20 hours per week, had been nonetheless working extra time for personal occasions by the town’s fund that gives for that — regardless of restrictions within the metropolis’s memorandum of understanding with the division that restricts their eligibility.
There are numerous limits on what number of hours of extra time an officer could make which are paid by the town, together with an total annual restrict of 520 hours. However officers could make extra in the event that they work personal occasions which are reimbursed by occasion holders. The report stated 51,000 hours of 10B shifts went to ineligible officers with excessive sick depart charges.
The auditors really helpful enacting higher controls to observe potential abuse of sick depart and proscribing those that took extreme day without work from working 10B shifts.
The audit famous that the problems have been exacerbated by staffing shortages on the police division which have endured since 2020. The division was about 12% wanting its goal of roughly 2,189 sworn officers as of this month, in response to Police Chief William Scott.
“Overall, we found a lack of both internal and external accountability for overtime limit violations and excessive overtime at SFPD,” auditors wrote. “The Department has not taken sufficient steps to enforce its overtime limits, and violations typically do not result in consequences or corrective action.”
‘It was bad, but not this bad’
Supervisor Dean Preston requested the audit because the chair of the Authorities Audit and Oversight Committee after he stated the police division overspent its 2023 extra time finances by over $55 million. Preston misplaced his bid for reelection.
“I knew it was bad, but not this bad,” Preston stated in a press launch. “The violation of laws and contracts, the lack of oversight, and the abuse of overtime are alarming and require immediate intervention and oversight.”
Scott wrote in a letter to auditors that the police division solely disagreed with three of the report’s 30 suggestions.
He attributed the extra time will increase to staffing shortages and stated that the division had already made some modifications to handle the issues recognized, together with creating an Extra time Compliance Unit and a option to establish stations which are at their extra time restrict or usually are not following extra time insurance policies.
“As noted in the audit, the increase in the use of overtime in the SFPD is directly tied to the current understaffing of the Department, which at last count was noted at a shortfall of at least 274 officers,” he wrote to the Price range and Legislative Analyst’s Workplace.
“Prior to 2020, SFPD had not required officers to backfill shifts on overtime when other members were absent because the Department had enough personnel to cover the work using on duty personnel. As staffing levels have dropped, overtime has increased at an inversely proportional rate,” he wrote.
The suggestions the division disagreed with included one urging it to make anybody who used greater than 40 hours of sick time throughout the final six months ineligible for an additional time-off bonus known as a “fitness award.” One other suggestion known as for giving the division extra flexibility to regulate scheduled hours with out paying extra time, and incorporating extra extra time knowledge into its biannual report back to the Board of Supervisors.
FILE PHOTO: Police in riot gear block the fifth road entry path to the Moscone Middle, in the course of the APEC convention in San Francisco on Nov. 15, 2023 (Ruth Dusseault/BCN)
A number of the audit’s different suggestions had been creating biweekly studies on extra time utilization throughout the division, having penalties for administrative breakdowns and implementing current sick depart insurance policies.
Others centered round conducting extra inside audits, additional proscribing vacation and different pay bonuses based mostly on callout metrics and creating extra detailed staffing plans.
Auditors stated that the issue posed security considerations for officers and the general public due to the impression of working extreme extra time.
“Excessive overtime hours pose risks to public safety and officer health, may contribute to employee burnout and negatively affect morale, and may generate unnecessary financial costs for the City,” the report stated.
