Audit finds frequent comp time and daily overtime in Tinley Park police payroll; committee to review recommendations

An independent audit of Tinley Park Police Department payroll found frequent comp time use and daily overtime, and committee members directed staff to return with a status update on audit recommendations at a future meeting.

"Comp time was used nearly every single day in the period reviewed," Hannah, finance staff, told the finance committee. The audit sample covered about nine months of data, and the report found that, on average during a biweekly pay period, 15 percent of recorded hours were for time off and 85 percent were hours worked. The report also said the sample showed an average of 25 hours per day of comp time used and 75 overtime hours per day.

The report noted every officer recorded overtime in the sample period at an average of about 230 overtime hours per person over that roughly nine-month sample. The audit attributed roughly 29 percent of overtime hours to filling shifts created when another officer used time off; the report described scenarios where an officer would incur overtime and also use comp time within the same day by shifting start or end times.

Hannah summarized constraints affecting pay practice changes: "Most CBAs pay according to FLSA rules," she said, and added that the village's police contract treats sick time differently than other leave types for overtime calculations. The committee heard that some overtime growth has occurred despite additional staffing: the audit referenced a Northwestern University Center for Public Safety staffing study and said the village authorized 18 additional positions after that study (13 of which were patrol), and the budgeted authorized officer count is 77. The transcript includes a reported figure that "police department overtime over the last 15 is nearly $22,000,000;" the audit materials in the meeting did not specify the precise time span tied to that dollar figure in the discussion.

Committee members and staff agreed the audit largely validated known patterns and stressed the need to examine recommendations. "We need to decide what works and what doesn't," Trustee Schaub said, noting that many recommendations were already under consideration and some enacted. No vote or contract change was taken during the finance meeting; the committee asked staff and command staff to continue working through recommendations and to present a status update at the next committee meeting.