Austin public safety agencies roll out electronic payroll system

Austin’s public safety agencies – the Austin Fire Department, the Austin Police Department and Austin-Travis County EMS – are in various stages of rolling out an electronic payroll system in an effort to streamline scheduling and other logistical tasks. The city’s Public Safety Commission expressed hope that the new system would improve transparency on how public safety personnel spend their time.

“We hear a lot about overtime and being short-staffed, but we would like to see more data about how a firefighter spends his day, how a … paramedic is spending their day, how a police officer is spending their day,” Chair Nelly Paulina Ramírez said at the commission’s meeting on Monday. “What percentage of your day is spent responding to 911 calls versus filling out reports versus community engagement versus … non-emergency sort of situations?”

The rollout began last year, amid longstanding staffing shortages at the three agencies, which have driven up overtime costs. 

ATCEMS leadership confirmed to commissioners that their department has completed the rollout. 

AFD Assistant Chief Andre de la Reza said his department is testing new scheduling and time-keeping systems, with a goal for them to go live in early April. At that point, the systems should provide answers to some of the commissioners’ questions. 

“You can use pay codes and work codes to get very much more granular,” he said. “So we’ll be able to get much more accurate data out of it.”

APD, meanwhile, plans to begin the testing phase later this month and to go live in June. 

Last year, APD Assistant Chief Scott Perry provided some context to the commission on his department’s unique need for – and challenges with implementing – an electronic payroll system.

“We are still on a paper overtime sheet process,” he said at a July 2023 meeting. “When you work more overtime, you fill out more overtime sheets. That increase in overtime sheets that have to be processed by the personnel that are in payroll is going to really put them behind the eight ball.”

In addition to burdening payroll staff, the paper process factored into concerns about overtime pay problems from the police union, as the Austin Monitor previously reported. 

But APD’s different shift lengths – some officers work four 10-hour shifts a week, others five eight-hour shifts – have made the transition to a new system difficult.

“APD historically has a very confusing and difficult time-keeping system because of the way our officers are scheduled,” Perry said. “It’s just a very difficult system to manage.”

With the rollout imminent and other data sources in use, including the APD’s new online dashboard, Chief of Staff Jeff Greenwalt also indicated that the commission could glean some insights into how sworn officers spend their time.

Commissioner Rebecca Bernhardt said this was of critical importance, referencing a recent lawsuit filed by a former APD officer, Samm Liedtke. 

“We have a … lawsuit against APD right now, and at the heart of that lawsuit is whether or not one officer was left to respond to high-priority calls by themselves because other officers in the area refused to respond,” she said. “This is really operationally important in terms of being able to know what officers are doing.”

Commissioner Timothy Ruttan agreed about the importance of such insights but also cautioned about undue administrative burden.

“I think the goal of knowing what folks are doing is important, but we have to be cautious about what we’re asking from systems and from individuals on the front lines,” he said. 

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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