Palo Alto committee forwards auditor's report citing chronic understaffing and $7.5M in public-safety overtime

The Palo Alto Policy & Services Committee voted unanimously May 12 to forward a city auditor's report finding chronic understaffing and heavy reliance on overtime in the city's police and fire departments.

"The objective of this audit was to determine if the fire and police departments are effectively and efficiently staffed, including the use of overtime," City Auditor Kate Murdoch told the committee as she opened a presentation of the findings. Murdoch said the departments together recorded about $7,500,000 in overtime in FY2024 and both significantly exceeded overtime budgets.

The audit identified four findings for the Police Department and one for Fire. Among the police findings, Murdoch said the department remains about eight sworn officers short of pre-pandemic staffing and "had 20 officers that were not deployable due to training, injuries, and work minimum patrol staff requirements." The report also found that the top 10 sworn employees accounted for roughly 35% of the department's sworn overtime hours, a concentration the auditor said can indicate workload imbalances and burnout risk.

Murdoch recommended that police and fire consider overhiring for positions affected by long-term leave, expand recruitment and retention efforts, conduct a comprehensive staffing analysis and reassess minimum patrol staffing standards. The audit also urged improved overtime budgeting, enterprise data integration and formal tracking of academy outcomes so hiring strategies can be better informed.

Police Chief James Reifchander told the committee the department has expanded remedial training and is beginning to track academy outcomes by training site. "We did unfortunately have what I would describe as an aberration, which was we had a large academy class that yielded only a handful of successful recruits," he said, describing a recent cohort with unusually low success rates and noting that, excluding that group, historical success rates were closer to two-thirds to three-quarters.

Chief Reifchander also said some overtime expense reflects reimbursable activity. He told the committee that over the last 12 months police overtime approached $3.9 million and that roughly $1.5 million of that for an organized retail-theft detail is fully reimbursable by the state.

Council members pressed staff on the budget mechanics that allow vacancy savings to be used to cover overtime, matters finance staff said they had not yet formally reviewed as part of this committee's discussion. Assistant City Manager Kylene Jose said staff plans to realign budget assumptions to more transparently reflect vacancy savings versus overtime expenditures going forward.

Members also raised safety concerns. Vice Mayor Stone cited a national analysis linking extended overtime to increased rates of misconduct and workplace injury and said the committee should treat employee fatigue as a public-safety issue.

After questioning and discussion, Council Member Rekdal moved — and Vice Mayor Stone seconded — a motion to accept the audit results and recommend the full City Council accept them; the committee voted unanimously to carry the motion and refer the report to council.

What happens next: the referral means the full City Council will consider the audit's findings and any staff recommendations at a future council meeting. The auditor and department leaders said they will continue to explore recruitment, retention and data-tracking steps identified in the report.