Police Bureau continued to make headway on managing overtime and second jobs

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Our police overtime audit found high overtime use in 2018: nearly 250,000 extra hours at a cost of $15.7 million. But the costs of overtime were not just financial. Long hours lead to more accidents, injuries, and burnout for officers. Secondary employment, which is off-duty contract work, also taxed a system that relied on overtime to meet minimum staffing needs. The program had a low public profile and inconsistent procedures despite risks it posed for the City.

We recommended that the Bureau improve overtime data collection and reporting and change the approval process for off-duty work, and report publicly about contracts, hours worked at second jobs, and finances. Since 2019, the Bureau improved the secondary employment program by considering equity in contract approvals and creating a rationale for overhead charges. The Bureau also improved overtime data collection, oversight, and reporting, but is still working to add important pieces of information, such as which supervisors authorized overtime and whether training attendance that caused overtime was discretionary.

Five recommendations are in process

• Overtime tracking improved, some updates pending
  We recommended that the Bureau improve overtime data collection. It developed a new overtime dashboard with a publicly viewable version online and an internal version that supervisors could use to monitor individual officers’ hours. It included the shifts during which overtime was worked, a unique code for tracking overtime for street protests, and the sergeant who approved overtime. The Bureau was still working to track whether training attendance that caused overtime was discretionary and which supervisor authorized overtime.
   
• New reports allow for better supervision, additional reports in development
  We recommended that the Bureau develop useful reports so that supervisors could identify officers who worked and sergeants who authorized extraordinary amounts of overtime. The new overtime dashboard included total hours worked by officers within relevant periods and the ability to break down hours indicating when it was caused by report-writing and calls that came toward the end of the officers’ shifts.
  
  The Bureau could not develop reports about sergeants who authorized extraordinary amounts of overtime because shift scheduling is performed collectively by all sergeants assigned to a shift. However, the Bureau developed a report to show which shifts had extra leave and overtime. It also plans to develop a report about overtime used to backfill discretionary training after it creates a way to track it.
   
• Limits on overtime contingent on labor negotiations
  We recommended that the Bureau limit the number of overtime hours an officer could work. This recommendation should be addressed in ongoing contract negotiations with the Portland Police Association.
   
• Secondary employment contracts now reviewed by Chief's Office--Directive update pending
  We recommended that the Bureau revise and document the approval process for off-duty work so that the Chief’s Office conducts the primary review of contracts instead of precinct commanders or the Portland Police Association. The change was intended to ensure consistency and that contracts met Bureau standards. The Assistant Chief of Operations reviewed all secondary employment contracts starting in September 2019. The Bureau said the new procedure would be included in a pending update to the secondary employment directive. The Bureau does not plan to revise this directive until contract negotiations with the Portland Police Association have concluded.
   
• Denied secondary employment contracts will be tracked--Directive update pending
  We recommended that the Bureau track contracts that were not approved and record the reason why. The Bureau didn’t yet have a policy for tracking denied contracts but said that the new secondary employment directive would include one. The Bureau provided an example of a contract that had been denied.

Three recommendations were implemented in year two

• Equity considered when approving contracts
  We recommended that the Bureau consult with its equity manager and consider the equity effects involved in proposed secondary employment contracts. The Bureau finalized its equity lens and said the Assistant Chief for Operations uses it when considering contracts for approval.
   
• Full cost of secondary employment calculated
  We recommended that the Bureau create a rationale for overhead charges that include the cost of payroll processing and billing to organizations that use off-duty officers. The Bureau developed a model to calculate the full cost of secondary employment and said it would phase in customer price increases over the next four to five years.
   
• All contracts listed in accounting system
  We recommended that the Bureau track the name of organizations that use off-duty officers or an identification number in the system officers used to record secondary employment overtime or payroll to ensure that all hours worked could be traced back to a specific contract. The Bureau created tracking numbers in its accounting system for all new contracts.

Two recommendations were implemented in year one

• Secondary employment contracts, hours, and dollar amounts now publicly reported
  We recommended that the Bureau report publicly on contracts approved, hours worked, and finances. The Bureau began posting information on secondary employment contracts on its website, but the report only included new contracts and will be incomplete until all previous contracts expire. The information can be viewed online.
   
• Bureau monitoring secondary employment hours worked for compliance with labor agreements
  We recommended that the Bureau improve oversight of officers working secondary employment to ensure compliance with labor agreement requirements. The Bureau said that staff would review the internal overtime dashboard for compliance.

View the 2019 audit report and recommendations.

Visit our online dashboard to track the status of recommendations from other reports