Police Overtime: Management is lax despite high overtime use

Report
A photograph of the flashing lights on the top of a police car with icons over the photograph of a police officer and a clock, representing overtime.
Portland Police overtime was high by historical standards in 2018. Officers worked nearly 250,000 hours and the Bureau spent $15.7 million on overtime. We found management of overtime for patrol officers could be improved.
Published

Policing is unpredictable. It’s impractical to have enough police on staff to manage every street brawl, shooting, or festival parade. Police working events like these usually work overtime.

But in Portland recently, the police say that the majority of overtime they work is not due to these kinds of events, and that most overtime is needed just to schedule enough officers for daily patrol because of a staffing shortage. That reasoning makes so much sense that the Bureau hardly questions that it spent $15.7 million on overtime in Fiscal Year 2017-2018 and that officers worked nearly 250,000 extra hours. The reliance on overtime is costly and poses safety risks to officers and community members.

Within this context, some common-sense policies and procedures to limit overtime have fallen by the wayside or were never used in the first place. Using data and timely reports to manage staffing better, placing limits on the amount of overtime officers can work, and taking control of the time police work on contract for outside employers could all lessen the demand for overtime.

View our audit report and recommendations

View highlights from the audit report

Contact

Elizabeth Pape

Performance Auditor II

Kristine Adams Wannberg

Performance Auditor II