According to SFPD management, many police officers who earn high amounts of overtime are scheduled to work on the night shift and weekends. As a result, these officers can earn significant overtime when required to attend weekday and daytime court. Individuals who are scheduled on holidays, work special duty, volunteer for a significant number of special events (including Special Law Enforcement Services funded events) or are assigned to grant activities can also earn high amounts of overtime. Based on our review of overtime records, special event overtime (or Extended Work Week--EWW), is the largest single reason overtime is paid to police officers, representing approximately 36 percent of all overtime paid in FY 1995-96. Also, over $3.1 million annually is paid in SLES overtime using non-City funds and such funds are the source for many high earners of overtime. Although specific records are not maintained by the Department, it is also likely that Investigative overtime and EWW overtime is a major contributing factor to high overtime earnings paid from City funds by individual officers.

Individual police officers who work high amounts of overtime affect Police Department operations, public safety, and police officer safety in two primary ways:

(1) Individuals who work a significant number of overtime hours can earn relatively high salaries when compared with their co-workers. These individuals can become dependent on their higher salaries, competing vigorously with their co-workers for overtime assignments when such assignments become available. Accordingly, by providing a culture of unfettered acceptance and opportunity for individuals to increase their salaries substantially over base levels, the City may be inadvertently encouraging its employees to overwork themselves and to manipulate the work scheduling system to achieve personal economic advantage. Working a high number of overtime hours can become a person"s primary employment goal, regardless of how an excessive work schedule may affect his or her personal or professional life.

(2) Individuals who work a high number of overtime hours can become fatigued, increasing the potential for using poor judgment during the performance of their duties. Using poor judgment can impact the safety of the officer, his or her co-workers, and the public, and can result in the likelihood of increased officer injury and workers compensation costs.

More detailed discussion of these issues are provided below.

Top Overtime Earners

High overtime earnings by individual police officers results in high total salaries for many officers in the SFPD. In CY 1995, 61 sworn employees earned between $30,000 and $40,000 in overtime wages and 18 sworn employees earned over $40,000 in overtime wages, for a total of 79 employees earning in excess of $30,000 in overtime wages in one year. For a police officer, whose base salary is $51,909 per year at the top step, earning overtime wages of $30,000 would result in a total annual salary of $81,909. For an inspector or sergeant, whose base annual salaries are $60,329 each, earning overtime wages of $30,000 would result in a gross annual salary of $90,329.

Of the 79 employees who earned in excess of $30,000 in overtime wages, there were 16 police officers, sergeants and inspectors who earned total salaries in excess of $100,000 in CY 1995. The total earnings for these individuals exceeded the base annual salaries for lieutenants, captains and commanders, which were $68,821, $80,812 and $95,488 respectively in 1995. Four of these individuals earned more than $117,515 per year, which is the salary of a deputy chief. One sergeant earned more than the chief of police, who earns $126,694 per year. That sergeant, who was the top overtime earner in CY 1995, was assigned to the Vice Unit in the Investigations Bureau and earned approximately $66,405 in overtime wages, for a total annual salary of approximately $130,485.

Table 3.4.1 shows the top five overtime earners for CY 1995.

Table 3.4.1
Top Police Department Overtime Earners
San Francisco Police Department - CY 1995

As shown above, these five officers worked between 59.1 percent and 73.8 percent of their regularly scheduled hours in overtime (2,088 hours per year, which includes holiday, vacation, sick, and other leave hours), or an average of between 23.7 and 29.0 hours of overtime per week, for all 52 weeks in the year. Based on analysis conducted for Section 1 and Section 2 of this report, regular and overtime hours worked by these individuals exceeded the average number of total hours worked by other police officers in the Department by a minimum of between 174.0 percent and 190.5 percent in 1995 (nearly twice as many hours).

We did not evaluate the specific reasons why these individuals were permitted to work such high amounts of overtime. Certainly, as with other police officers in the Department, some of this overtime may have been necessary and unavoidable due to the nature of the individuals" assignments and workload. However, it is the Budget Analyst"s professional opinion that working overtime hours to the extent reported for the top overtime earners in the Department can lead to worker fatigue and low morale.

The Potentially Negative Effect of High Overtime Usage on Public Safety

The Budget Analyst examined the Controller"s report, dated January 19, 1996, regarding the City"s top overtime earners for Calendar Year 1995. Table 3.4.1 shows a breakdown of overtime use by sworn employees, based on approximately 2,034 officers on-duty as of January, 1996.

Table 3.4.2
Overtime Usage by Sworn Employees
San Francisco Police Department, 1995

As reflected in Table 3.4.1, 46 percent, or 936 sworn employees, worked in excess of ten percent of their regular hours in overtime, which accounted for 93.2 percent of all overtime hours. These 936 employees worked in excess of 44 hours per week on a year-round basis (40 regular hours plus 4 overtime hours). Of these 936 employees, 403 officers worked in excess of 48 hours per week on a year-round basis, and 157 worked in excess of 52 hours per week on a year-round basis. In addition, the City permits police officers to have second jobs, at which they are permitted to work up to an additional 20 hours per week. It is uncertain the extent to which high overtime earners may have second jobs which would further increase the total number of hours worked by each.

Establishing and Monitoring Individual Limits on Overtime

The San Francisco Administrative Code establishes the maximum number of overtime hours that can be worked by miscellaneous employees as 16 percent of regularly scheduled hours (approximately 334 overtime hours per year). There is currently no limit on overtime for sworn employees. Upon examining the Controller"s overtime report, the Budget Analyst identified 580 sworn employees (28.5 percent of the workforce) and ten miscellaneous employees with overtime hours in excess of 16 percent of regularly scheduled hours, or more than 334 overtime hours per year.

The Police Department may wish to consider establishing limits on voluntary overtime (such as SLES, and in contrast to EWW or Court overtime where limits cannot be enforced) for individual sworn employees. For example, the Police Department could establish an overtime limit for sworn employees at 20 percent (418 hours per year) of regularly scheduled hours. This would provide for a more equitable distribution of overtime hours throughout the Department, reducing the likelihood that a small percentage of police officers would work excessive hours and become fatigued. Additionally, individual sworn overtime limits could potentially result in a reduction in overtime expenditures.

A portion of this overtime cost would likely be shifted from sworn employees who currently work more than 120 percent of their regular hours, to sworn employees who currently work fewer overtime hours than would be permitted under a 20 percent cap on voluntary overtime. However, if some of the overtime hours currently worked by sworn employees are not essential, such non-essential hours could potentially be eliminated by establishing individual overtime limits. However, because of a lack of available data, we cannot estimate overtime savings which may result from establishing overtime work limitations at this time.

Additionally, the Police Department should more closely monitor high overtime use by miscellaneous employees. As noted above, despite the 16 percent limit on overtime established by Administrative Code, there were ten miscellaneous employees who worked more than 16 percent of their regular hours in overtime in CY 1995. These ten employees resulted in an excess overtime wage expense of $32,254 for the Police Department. However, whether the enforcement of the 16 percent overtime limit for miscellaneous employees would result in a reduction in overtime expenditures depends on what portion of the excessive overtime hours are shifted to miscellaneous employees who work less than 16 percent of their regular hours in overtime.

Conclusions

Police officers who work a high number of overtime hours can become fatigued, increasing the potential for using poor judgment during the performance of their duties. Using poor judgment can impact the safety of the police officer, his or her co-workers and the public, and can result in increased officer injury and workers compensation costs for the City.

In CY 1995, 403 sworn employees regularly worked in excess of 48 hours per week. Of these, 61 sworn employees earned between $30,000 and $40,000 in overtime wages and 18 sworn employees earned over $40,000 in overtime wages, for a total of 79 employees earning in excess of $30,000 in overtime wages in one year. Sixteen police officers, sergeants and inspectors earned in excess of $100,000 from regular and overtime wages. One individual earned more than the Chief of Police.

The Police Department should establish limits on voluntary overtime for sworn employees and should more closely monitor overtime earned by civilian employees. By establishing overtime limits, the likelihood of police officer fatigue and overtime expenditures would be reduced.

Recommendations

The Chief of Police should:

3.4.1 Establish a voluntary overtime limit for individual sworn employees of 20 percent of regularly scheduled hours.

3.4.2 More closely monitor overtime earnings by civilian employees in order to ensure that individuals do not exceed the current overtime limit of 16 percent of regularly scheduled hours.

Costs and Benefits

There would be no cost to implement the recommendations.

By establishing overtime limits, the likelihood of police officer fatigue would be reduced, and police officer and public safety would be enhanced. Additionally, potentially unnecessary overtime would be eliminated.

Establishing and enforcing individual overtime limits could also result in a reduction in overtime expenditures. A modest two percent reduction in General Fund overtime expenditures would amount to a $220,000 savings annually.