Council hearing spotlights BPD overtime as youth advocates demand funds for jobs

At a May 15 Boston City Council Committee on Ways and Means hearing, Councilor Brian Worrell, chair of the committee, and Boston Police Department officials discussed the department’s overtime spending while a coalition of young people urged the council to cap and cut overtime and redirect money into youth jobs and community services.

The council hearing comes as advocates and several councilors questioned why the department continued to rely on overtime to fill shifts. Councilor Julia Mejia asked whether the department had “overspent by $68 million” in overtime; the Commissioner told the committee that “BPD has overspent by $12,000,000 in overtime” as of March 31, 2025 (an assertion the Commissioner said reflected the department’s accounting against its FY2025 allocation).

Why this matters: Councilors and youth advocates said overtime that funds extra details and additional shift coverage is diverting dollars from programs they say prevent violence and support vulnerable residents. Youth speakers said the city’s youth‑jobs programs have fewer slots even as the police received additional positions.

“Youth jobs were cut. You know, like, about 5,000 slots were asked for, and about 2,000 were filled,” said Khalil Howe, a youth organizer with Youth Justice and Power Union. “We looked at the data, and the police got 223 slots. So it's really insane to me… And then what do we do? We throw more money at the police.”

The Commissioner told the committee that most overtime is used to “fill public safety needs” and described overtime as a stopgap when staffing is short. “One of the easiest and best ways to get through overtime is to replace it with new officers,” the Commissioner said. “Each one of those overtimes are like adding another person to fulfill a public safety need.”

Councilors pressed for specifics and for steps to reduce overtime. Councilor Liz Breaden, Councilor Lydia Santana and others said they supported community policing and investments that keep residents safe, but pressed for clearer accounting of how overtime funds are used and whether the city can shift costly detail work away from sworn officers.

Youth and community testimony dominated public comment. Dozens of young people affiliated with Youth Justice and Power Union, including Mikayla Young, Samaya Dontes, Alexa Santana and Victoria White, urged a hiring freeze for new police recruits, a cap on individual officers’ overtime, and a reallocation of city money into youth jobs, housing and mental health services. “We demand that the mayor and the city council cap and cut the amount of hours an individual cop can take in overtime,” Victoria White told the committee.

Councilors said the city is exploring administrative changes to reduce overtime, including automating detail scheduling (a separate item discussed at the hearing) and reallocating non‑emergency work away from sworn officers. The Commissioner said the department has reduced overtime compared with last year and that some categories, such as extended tours, have fallen significantly; he reiterated that staffing increases would be the most direct way to bring down overtime costs.

What’s next: The committee asked the department for more detailed overtime accounting, month‑by‑month trends and program‑level breakdowns. Youth speakers asked councilors to prioritize additional summer and school‑year job slots and oppose the proposed budget increases for equipment and overtime that they said would further shrink community funding.

Ending: No vote occurred on the floor during the hearing. Councilors said they will continue budget deliberations through June and asked staff for written data on overtime trends and on how many youth‑job slots the police department uses in the school‑year and summer programs.