Vacancies at public safety agencies drive overtime costs

Staffing shortages in the city’s police, fire and emergency medical services departments are driving record-high reliance on overtime.

Following a request from the city’s Public Safety Commission, public safety officials provided data on overtime use, as well as some possible solutions, at the commission’s meeting on Monday. 

In response, commissioners voted unanimously to recommend that City Council consider maximizing the use of unsworn staff at special events “to alleviate demand on our public safety agencies year-round and to mitigate expenses for the city.” 

Police 

Sworn overtime expenditures at the Austin Police Department generally have risen precipitously in recent years, reaching nearly $30 million in Fiscal Year 2022-23, according to a presentation by Assistant Chief James Mason.

Mason said staff shortages, a long-standing challenge for the department, and vacancies at the city’s 911 call center are the main reasons for overtime, most of which is paid at one-and-a-half times an employee’s base pay rate. Certain overtime shifts are paid double the base rate, including those on patrol and in the Travis County Jail. 

So far in Fiscal Year 2023-24, approximately 95 percent of the Austin Police Department’s sworn officers have worked at least some overtime hours. 

Given this persistent demand, Mason said the department struggles to recruit officers for shifts covering special events and relies instead on contracting personnel from other agencies, such as Travis County sheriff’s deputies and Austin Transportation Department mobility safety officers. 

But the department is training 14 retirees as part of its APD Reserve Officer Program, which is scheduled to launch Oct. 1 and will help meet special event staffing needs during the Austin City Limits Music Festival. 

“So that’s been a good thing,” Mason said. 

EMS 

Similarly, overtime expenditures at Austin-Travis County EMS are growing, increasing roughly 16 percent to $12.5 million so far in FY 2023. Division Chief Wes Hopkins said the costs are due to recent increases in pay rates and vacancies, among other reasons. 

In a separate presentation, Hopkins briefed the commission on ATCEMS’s Collaborative Care Communications Center, which launched in 2020. Spurred by the pandemic, the center focuses on low-acuity patients, and has helped free up ambulances for patients that need more urgent attention, among other benefits.  

“Most of the calls that we encounter are either low-acuity or an intermittent acuity where we can do some good,” he said. “But we’re being used as an access point to the health care system. We used to be transport to the health care system, and now we’re a part of the health care system, especially coming out of Covid. Our careers and our trajectories have changed.” 

The center receives roughly 700 calls each month and relies on paramedics, physician assistants, social workers, licensed professional counselors, and physicians to direct eligible patients to non-hospital sites or appropriate services. These may include long-term care facilities, hospice or public assistance. 

Hopkins says the center has helped free up ambulances and hospital emergency department beds for high-acuity patients. It also has saved patients – 54 percent of whom are uninsured or underfunded – money by preventing unnecessary rides to the hospital and emergency room visits. So far this fiscal year, the center has saved patients $6.8 million, which Hopkins expects to grow to nearly $8 million by Oct. 1.

Fire 

Unlike at the Austin Police Department and ATCEMS, overtime expenditures at the Austin Fire Department “fluctuate year-to-year,” according to a June 12 memo from Fire Chief Joel Baker to Council. But staffing shortages remain the shared driver. 

Assistant Chief Rob Vires told commissioners that overtime is required to meet mandatory staffing levels on fire trucks but increasingly can be allocated on a voluntary, rather than a mandatory, basis. 

“Right now, we’re in a lot better position in that we only have 15 vacancies in the department,” he said. 

The Fire Department is also less burdened by special events, which account for less than 1 percent of its overtime use and mostly is recovered through associate fees.

“A lot of our work is done on the front end of the event,” Vires said. “We do a lot of the reviews, the permitting, looking at how things are laid out, the materials used, exiting and all the big things that are concerns from a life safety standpoint.” 

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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