OPD AUDIT AND BUDGET

City of Oakland Targets Police OT in Cost Cutting Plan

Source: kcbs
Publication date: 2005-05-09

(KCBS) - Oakland City officials want to put a dent in police
overtime, now that a city audit has projected major cost overruns in
that area.

Bob Melrose in the KCBS Alameda County Bureau says the audit
projected that OT in 2005 could cost up to $18 million - $5 million
over-budget.

The audit recommends re-deploying officers among other things and
tweaking schedules.

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown said many Oakland cops work four ten hour
days per week, and there are not enough officers to go around in the
first place.

"The fact is, Oakland does not have enough police. We don't have
enough policemen on the streets," he said. "Overtime is a natural
response to try to compensate for a very small department relative to
the number of people and the volume of crimes and calls that we're
faced with."

Another proposal is to move school resource and foot patrol officers
back to regular beats, which is expected to bring resistance from the
police officer's union.

But Brown said safety is the first priority.

"I am worried about reducing crime and homicides. If we have to spend
a little more money, that doesn't bother me as much as somebody
getting their home burglarized or their car robbed or something like
that," he said. "I take public safety as number one, financing number
two. But we will have progress in reducing overtime."

"We need different kinds of employment," said Brown. "We've got to
take these creative steps. They require some negotiation with the
officer's association, but I am confident that we're going to make
some progress."

Interim police Chief Wayne Tucker has vowed to spend the next few
weeks coming up with a way to deal with the OT.

This is ridiculous: The city should authorize more office maybe 200. Audit the entire city bureaucracy, when they discover the million's in waisted funds throughout the city, cut those programs, if they even exist, reallocate the capital to the police department. Then maybe this city could be effectively staffed and have the resources needed to make it a functional city that would attract business and additional revenue. Hopefully then a strong sense of capitalism would take place and force the socialist element across the bay or into Berkley .

Lew Mace

I haven't heard a Blevinism for a long time. It's the Missouri blood
in you. Well said as usual. The bottom line is that OPD doesn't have
enough troops to fill the empty spots. It looks as though I'll see
you at the reunion.

Jim Simonson

This reminds me of the man trying to fill a five pound bag with three pounds of
beans. Regardless of how he puts the beans in the bag, it never gets full.

C. Blevins

The reason that city is broke is because they feel they have to hire outside consultants to audit their own departments. They can pay me half that money and I can tell them that the reason they have to pay overtime is because
they are short staffed, they cannot keep anyone longer than three years on the department, the morale is low because the City Council thinks they all attended the police academy and so they RUN it, they do not have any faith
in command personnel to be the Chief after they have worked there for twenty years. Next thing you know they will be hiring Captains and Lieutenants from other agencies. Police Officers have to second guess themselves everytime
they take action in fear of being sued, charged with police brutality or charged criminally.

The city has an Accounting Department, why can't they do the audit for FREE. Is it because City Hall does not have faith in them to do a good job, maybe the Accounting Department should be audited. If this company in Philadelphia is so good then they should look into Congress' spending or how about the State Of California .

I know let's audit the Oakland City Council, I know there is a firm somewhere that will take that money to do that.

Vic Sandoval

Drat! Ronoz stole some of my thunder.

The OPD overtime thing: I wonder if this "audit" will dig in deep enough to find where the real problem lies? My guess is, "no". At least if it does find the real problem, it will not be publicized.

What the audit needs to do is first examine the tasks assigned to the OPD, and then look at the personnel available to do those tasks in the context of how much time is required to do those tasks and how much time the available personnel represent. When the time required to do the job exceeds the hours that personnel are available (in "straight-time" hours), then there is a problem. The solution is either to leave tasks undone and save money, or to do the jobs and pay for the extra hours. 

Oz is right on the money in suggesting that an evaluation of past years' practices be made so that there is a baseline, or at least a chance of identifying a trend. If done correctly the audit will show that more and more tasks have been assigned without any increase in staffing, thus creating a problem. This problem is then exacerbated by faulty budgeting, in that with full knowledge of what it will cost to do this work (straight and premium pay) the financial planners fail to provide the funding necessary. This makes the budget look "balanced" at the start but by the end of the year it is woefully in the red. My question is this: Why is this funding shortfall the fault of the police department?

If you send someone out to buy a new Mercedes and only give them $10,000, they are going to come back with either nothing, or a Mercedes and a budget over-run of about $40,000.

Mike Martin

Look at the audit as a GOOD thing ( eyeopener ) for the City Hall rats & "downtown Brown". Let them do the audit, then compare that cost w/ what it would have taken to field the same # of officer hrs if they had hired enough to fill the positions required ( incude hiring, training, equiptment , salary ,pension contributions & benefits for the officers) and see they are getting a bargain paying OT to already  qualified R/Os. But we probably wont see that #.
Only a fleeting thought, jim coleman

From: R Souza

Audit finds OPD needs overhaul
Oakland cops must eliminate culture of overtime, independent
investigation concludes
By Heather MacDonald, STAFF WRITER



OAKLAND -- The Oakland Police Department must be overhauled from top to
bottom to rein in overtime spending, which is expected to swell to $18
million this year, according to an audit released Friday.

In the short term, the audit recommends officers now assigned to special
investigations -- including teams devoted to stamping out reckless
driving "sideshows" in East Oakland -- be redeployed to fill empty
patrol beats.

But the audit blames understaffing for only part of the problem and
recommends commanders be required to justify the need for overtime
before it is approved by department leaders.

Philadelphia-based Public Financial Management Inc. was paid $180,000 to
conduct the audit, over the objections of some members of the Oakland
City Council and City Auditor Roland Smith, who said he could do it for
a fraction

of the cost.

Council President Ignacio De La Fuente (Glenview-Fruitvale )said the
audit was "well worth the money." The auditors came up with 71
recommendations in all, which could save $25.2 million over the next
five years, including $7.5 million in the next two years.

"Some are going to be easy, some are going to be tough to implement," De
La Fuente said of the recommendations.

Interim police Chief Wayne Tucker has proposed a similar redeployment
plan to reduce the amount of overtime needed to fill the department's 35
patrol beats. He said the audit would be of great value to the department.

Tucker said he was eager to begin analyzing the audit and determining
which recommendations are feasible. The chief pledged to work with the
council, the Oakland Police Officers Association and the community

on the changes.

The council must close a $31.7 million budget gap by the end of June.
Unless long-term solutions are found, the 2006-07 budget is expected to
be another $26.4 million short.

Scott Quehl , the primary author of the audit, did not return a phone
message left Friday.

The changes recommended by the audit seek to put an end to the culture
of overtime that commanders acknowledge now exists at Oakland Police
Department. In 2003-04, 20 officers earned more than $60,000 in
overtime, placing them among the best-paid city employees.

In fact, because of pressure from Mayor Jerry Brown and the council to
crack down on sideshows, which have grown increasingly violent and
disruptive, a plan has been drafted that would force dozens of officers,
starting perhaps as early as next week, to work overtime

on special enforcement teams, police officials said.

A number of the recommendations, including any redeployment of officers ,
would require the approval of the Oakland Police Officers Association,
whose contract with the city expires next year.

"We'll use this report as a tool when we negotiate the next contract,"
De La Fuente said.

Officer Bob Valladon , president of the Oakland Police Officers
Association, said the audit was flawed because it fails to tackle the
central cause of the increase in overtime spending: the department's
severe understaffing.

Valladon said he would fight any redeployment of officers and doubted
that any of the recommendations would be implemented.

" It's just not gonna happen," Valladon said.

The audit also recommends the city change the officers' work weeks from

four 10-hour days to five eight-hour days, a change Tucker said would
reduce the department's costs.

"We have to deploy our officers in the most efficient way possible," De
La Fuente said.

Valladon said such a change is out of the question. The four-day work
week is extremely popular with officers.

"If they want a war, they'll get it," Valladon said. "There will be a
mass exodus of officers from the Oakland Police Department."

The Police Department is on pace this year to exceed its budget by
nearly $13 million. Last year, it went $10 million over budget.

The auditors also found lax controls in the department's payroll
operations and little documentation for requests authorizing additional
pay. The department's payroll system should be centralized to reduce the
chance of error, according to the audit.

The city should also negotiate a reduction in the minimum amount of
overtime paid to officers called to testify in court cases, as well as a
reduction of officers' paid time off, including the amount of holiday
and sick leave, according to the audit.

The full council is scheduled to review the audit May 3.

Staff writer Harry Harris contributed to this report. E-mail Heather
MacDonald at hmacdonald@...
<mailto: hmacdonald@... >.

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