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SFPD asks committee to cover overtime shortfall, pledges changes to avoid repeat request
Summary
The San Francisco Police Department told the Budget & Finance Committee it needs supplemental funding to cover overtime driven by training, arrests and investigations, and will request an additional $2.8 million while committing to management changes and restored training funding.
The San Francisco Police Department asked the Budget & Finance Committee on Thursday to approve supplemental budget moves to cover rising overtime costs, citing accelerated hiring, expanded training and higher investigative workload.
Chief Scott told the committee that salary-savings — from delayed promotions, step-timing and vacancies — can be applied to offset overtime overages, but that several overtime categories have grown. He said arrest-related overtime is projected to total about 52,299 hours for the fiscal year and that investigative overtime is also substantial; homicides and other major investigations are a driver of the investigative hours. "You won't see us with this request this time next year," Chief Scott said, describing plans to reduce future supplemental needs.
Training and police-reform work accounted for a large share of the current-year overtime. Chief Scott said the department depleted special state education revenue that previously covered academy and instructor costs and tapped overtime to accelerate use-of-force and Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) trainings. He called roughly $500,000 in reform-related training costs a priority and described much of the accelerated instruction as one-time overtime exposure that the department expects to fund from replenished accounts going forward.
Supervisors pressed the department on why rising arrests have not produced commensurate increases in court hours and why arrest spikes translate into overtime. Chief Scott and staff said arrests, calls for service and special events combine to create workload that does not map one-to-one to court appearances; some arrests are cited out or cases are bundled and do not require officer courtroom time. Supervisors also questioned whether some homelessness-related responses now handled by police could be routed to civilian teams; Chief Scott described a 10-officer problem-solving team that coordinates with the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Public Works and the Department of Public Health.
SFPD said it will submit an overtime budget increase request of approximately $2,800,000 and will task managers across the department to re-review overtime strategies and mitigation measures. The committee voted to forward the ordinance and related materials to the full Board of Supervisors with a positive recommendation; Supervisor Kitty Tang made the motion and Supervisor Sheehy seconded it.
The clerk introduced, separately, a hearing to release $1,100,000 in reserved funds to the police overtime account; staff said that reserve had been placed in the prior budget cycle. That reserve release was moved and approved by the committee.
Next steps: Item 1 (the ordinance) was sent to the full Board with a positive recommendation; the department will submit its $2.8 million overtime request as part of budget follow-up and said it will show how training and special-event costs will be budgeted in FY18 to avoid spring supplemental requests.
