Austin Police Department keeps running on overtime

In January 2019, the Austin Monitor reported that APD had 110 vacancies and was making up for those vacancies by paying officers overtime.

On Monday, Assistant Police Chief James Mason told the Public Safety Commission the department now has 329 operational vacancies. Just as reported in 2019, and again last year, APD is counting on its workforce to work even longer hours. As a result of the vacancies, the department has spent $28 million on overtime during the current fiscal year, even though budget writers had projected that the department would spend just $7.7 million on that item. Last year, he noted, the department was budgeted for $5.8 million in overtime, but actually spent $22 million.

Overall, APD has spent just $256 million of its $337 million personnel budget this year, Mason said. With each retirement or other departure, the department loses an officer whose duties must be taken up by another. But if that person is not on the payroll, their salary can be spent on overtime. APD’s total operating budget is more than $373 million.

According to Mason, so far this year 90 officers have retired, 34 have simply quit and one was fired. He said he expects a record number of retirements this year.

Some members of the commission wanted to know whether the department is able to project how many officers will be retiring within the coming year. Mason said that although they know when each officer will be eligible to retire, it is up to the individual officer to inform the department of his or her plans. Some officers give the department several months of notice, while others just retire one day.

Right now, Mason said the biggest personnel problem for the department is the vacancy rate among 911 call takers. Currently, the department is running several classes to teach new call takers and dispatchers, but training takes time. He said there are currently 47 vacancies among 911 operators. He said he had met with the city manager earlier in the day to talk about how they might convince more people to join 911.

In discussing overtime, commissioners wanted to know how much overtime an individual officer could work.

Austin Police Association President Thomas Villarreal noted that an officer can work 76 hours a week; that is 40 hours on a regular shift and 36 hours of overtime. There have been some problems with overtime pay, Villarreal noted. He said that when he took over as APA president last year, he heard from a number of officers who said they were not receiving the overtime pay they were owed. It turns out that the police department is among the last to join the electronic information age and still uses paper that is passed from hand to hand and sometimes gets lost.

Villarreal said he was thankful that the city has taken officers’ complaints seriously and is working to rectify payroll problems. The plan is for APD to join other city departments in using a computerized payroll system – but not until the third or fourth quarter of next year. He said officers would like for that to happen sooner, adding that the city is “not listening to APA.” The city and the union have yet to reach agreement on a contract.

Photo by Josephawesome34, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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