By Will Katcher
masslive.com
BOSTON — The Boston Police Department spent over $77 million on overtime and was on pace to top $100 million through the first three quarters of the last fiscal year.
And that was before the Boston Marathon, before the NBA Finals and before more than 1 million fans packed the city streets for the Celtics championship parade in June — all events that required significant added police presence.
Police overtime spending has become a consistent drain on city resources, outpacing their overtime pay budget by $33 million, or 44%, last fiscal year, which ended on June 30, according to the Boston City Council.
“Year after year, administration after administration has really tried to address the issues of overtime spending to no avail. It’s due time,” City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said Thursday.
Her comments came as the council heard testimony on two closely related concerns: ballooning overtime pay and the department’s sagging staffing levels as more officers continue to leave the force than join it.
“There are fewer people who want to be police officers now,” Lisa O’Brien, the department’s co-bureau chief of Administration and Technology, told city councilors on Thursday.
The problem is by no means unique to Boston.
Across the country, police leaders report officers fleeing the field, particularly since the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer and the heated protests and national discussion on the role and responsibilities of law enforcement it prompted.
The Boston Police employs just over 2,000 officers, far from the 2,500 called for in city law. Between officers on leave, those in the academy and those otherwise unavailable, there are under 1,700 officers ready for deployment, O’Brien said.
The increase in overtime is necessary, police say, to meet the demands of a department struggling to fully staff its shifts. To reach the minimum staffing requirements, officers can be required to work overtime or have their shifts extended past their normal conclusion.
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“It kills me when we’re ordering officers on their days off to come in,” Deputy Superintendent Daniel Humphreys said at Thursday’s hearing.
In May, police officials told the city council they had nearly 550 unfilled positions. More than 250 vacancies were for sworn officers. Recent trends show the number of officers joining the department — 108 on average in the last three years — is not enough to offset the average of 131 leaving the department annually.
Almost 25% of all vacant city positions fall in the Boston Police, Councilor Brian Worrell, who represents parts of Dorchester, Mattapan and Roslindale, said Thursday.
One officer resigned from the department in 2018, while 36 did in 2022, according to an order filed by nine city councilors. Voluntary retirements in the same period rose from seventeen to 127.
“It’s a staffing crisis,” said Larry Calderone, the president of Boston’s largest police union, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association.
The burden of forced overtime and lengthy shifts leaves police officers physically and emotionally burnt out, pulling them from their families.
“It’s not only the right thing to do from a health and wellness perspective, but, if you hire more cops, you can cut police OT,” Calderone said.
Payroll records show that many of the city’s highest-paid employees are police officers, including 17 of the city’s top 20 earners, driven largely by overtime pay. Boston’s top-paid employee, Detective Lt. Stanley Demesmin , made $426,425 in 2023, including $221,579 in overtime on a base pay of $145,775, the records showed.
“As fiscal stewards, we need to get this under control,” Worrell said Thursday.
A 2015 audit identified a number of recommendations on how to reel in the department’s growing overtime spending, including closer supervision of overtime by department leaders and reforms of the paid detail policies.
Calderone urged councilors to also drop the requirement that police officers live in Boston for the first 10 years of their employment. He called it an “outdated” policy that makes it “harder, not easier, to hire more cops.”
The city has waived the residency requirement for other positions, including EMTs and 911 dispatchers. However, the policy remains for the police for now.
In the community, Councilor Ed Flynn said residents want to see greater police presence.
“They’re not asking for defunding the police,” Flynn, who represents parts of the South End, South Boston and Chinatown, said.
“Everything I hear in my district is we want more,” said Councilor Enrique J. Pepén, whose district includes parts of Hyde Park, Roslindale and Mattapan. “We want to see more walking beat police officers. We want to see more traffic enforcement.”
The department has taken steps to refill its ranks, including returning scores of officers from long-term medical leave, a process expedited under the latest contract with the patrol officers union. There are about 100 officers on medical leave, down from 300 during the height of the pandemic, O’Brien said.
Police officials are also reviewing how they staff large-scale events, including parades and protests. One recent community event previously staffed by more than 60 officers, was covered by about 30 under new strategies, Humphreys said.
But the number of such events is rising, he added. The city had nearly 250 special events in 2023; this year such events eclipsed 500.
“As that number grows the number of officers asked to help with public events is growing,” Humphreys said.
Councilor John FitzGerald , representing parts of Dorchester and the South End, said he spoke with an officer who worked constant double shifts and had to take a vacation day to catch his breath.
“They don’t want to work all this overtime,” FitzGerald said.
The longest period an officer can work at once is 18 hours, department officials said.
Those marathon shifts are “very unhealthy for someone carrying a weapon, very unhealthy for the public,” Flynn said. “That police officer is not on top of his or her game at the 16th hour, 17th hour.”
Superintendent Robert W. Ciccolo , Jr., of the Bureau of Administration and Technology, said the department has “been working very hard to reduce the number of officers on 18 hours.”
Flynn said he couldn’t accept that any officers would work that long in a single day.
“There’s something wrong with this system when we allow that to happen,” he said.
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