San Francisco police officers forced to work overtime due to staff shortage: report
San Francisco police officers are being forced to work overtime due to a decrease in new hires, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chronicle reported further that overtime pay for police officers skyrocketed in the past three years while staffing at the department has declined.
"The dramatic rise in overtime has occurred in spite of a city law that caps the total number of overtime hours a full-time city employee can work at 520 hours in one fiscal year unless a ‘critical staffing shortage’ necessitates an exemption, in which case the city’s director of human resources can raise the overtime cap for certain departments," the Chronicle reported.
"A spokesperson for the police union said that the overtime cap for the police department has been repeatedly increased over the past few years, and is now at 2,000, with overages beyond that allowed in certain circumstances."
A San Francisco police sergeant made over $400K in overtime pay, the most earnings by a city employee since 2013, according to the Chronicle.
"The number of police earning more than $100,000 in overtime more than tripled from 131 in the July 2021-June 2022 fiscal year to 493 in the July 2023-June 2024 fiscal year," the Chronicle reported.
Furthermore, the Chronicle added that research shows that overtime shifts can lead to worse performance by officers.
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The president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association issued a stern warning about the increase in overtime police officers have to work.
Tracy McCray said it is "an unsustainable, necessary evil that needs to be addressed immediately."
"Unless you want to see a catastrophic cut to police services, the City must either solve the staffing crisis or run the department through overtime," McCray said. "Most of our officers would prefer to keep their days off and their scheduled vacations to spend time with their families and loved ones rather than work countless hours of overtime."
The San Francisco Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The report comes after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' passed a measure to address the staffing shortage in the police force. The measure, called Proposition B, would require a minimum staffing level that is funded through an unspecified new or amended tax.
Back in February, the Chronicle published a scathing critique of San Francisco officials blasting the measure as "absurdly complicated."
Amid the city's police officer shortage, the Chronicle wrote that the city needs more police officers.
Democratic San Francisco Mayor London Breed was one of several city leaders across the nation who cut funding to the police in 2020, redirecting $120 million from law enforcement to fund other city initiatives.
Since then, the city has increased police spending, but the department is still down nearly 600 officers and only has 75% of the officers needed to meet workload demands, the city announced in April 2023.