A\u00a0city analysis says that while Phoenix Police spent over $98.56 million on overtime in the 2024-25 fiscal year, hundreds of unfilled officer positions largely covered the cost.<\/p>\n
The analysis, which was presented to a City Council subcommittee Sept. 3, says Phoenix actually saved $12.2 million, largely because Phoenix had 470 vacant sworn positions last fiscal year.<\/p>\n
As a result, the city yielded \u201csavings\u201d of $77.02 million in budgeted salaries and fringe benefits that were never spent because of those vacancies. Additional savings came from fund transfers and previous years’ vacant positions.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Despite the fact that the city is attracting more applicants for police positions, the number of those vacancies has risen in the current fiscal year to 489, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That means that while the General Fund has allocated money for 3,125 sworn officer positions, only 2,636 have been filled as of August, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The report says that as a result of chronic understaffing dating back to the 2019-20 fiscal year, \u201covertime is a significant cost burden to the General Fund.\u201d<\/p>\n
It says 80% of the total overtime costs \u201carises from unavoidable circumstances such as staffing shortages, special events like the Super Bowl, dignitary visits, court appearances and investigative responses.\u201d<\/p>\n
That overtime is \u201cprimarily driven by the need to meet minimum staffing requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remaining 20% of overtime costs is \u201cdiscretionary\u201d and \u201cis associated with activities that can be scheduled in advance, such as training, investigative case management and crime suppression activities,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cOvertime costs have increased primarily due to a combination of increased hours worked and City Council approved pay increases from the (job classification and compensation) study and labor-negotiated increases,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
\u201cFringe benefits including pension also exacerbate the cost of overtime,\u201d it continues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese pressures have coincided with staffing shortages and although staffing levels have started to improve, the usage of overtime has remained elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report notes that overtime comprises 1.5 times the normal hourly rate an officer earns, along with the cost of fringe benefits.<\/p>\n
And it says that while the Police Department uses a stringent set of rules and review of overtime requests and overall costs, it \u201cfaces two significant challenges in controlling overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first challenge is the limitation of the current Overtime Tracking System (LOTS), which is a time management system that is highly reactive, overly manual, and post-event oriented,\u201d the report states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese limiting factors impact the system\u2019s effectiveness in real-time management. The second challenge is ensuring supervisory accountability for the authorization and management of overtime.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report did not elaborate on the second factor.<\/p>\n
The subcommittee also reviewed revisions to Phoenix\u2019s emergency operations plan and a report on the effectiveness of \u201cnew responses to crime and disorder concerns\u201d over the last three years at four major intersections along the 27th Avenue corridor and one on East Hatcher Road in North Phoenix.<\/p>\n
The overtime report was compiled largely at the request of District 7 Councilwoman Anna Hernandez, who cast the sole vote against the 2025-26 budget.<\/p>\n
Hernandez, whose district largely involves South Phoenix, was sworn in last April and quickly emerged as the most strident Councl critic of Phoenix Police.<\/p>\n
Hernandez, whose brother was fatally shot by police during a confrontation in 2019, decried the police appropriation, which exceeds $1 billion in the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n
She charged that the city continues \u201cto under-invest in the root cause solutions that would reduce community hardships and protect our residents\u201d and that \u201cwe are increasing police funding and responding to the crisis that our communities are facing with more criminalization and more threats of police violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Overtime costs for Phoenix Police have been exacerbated by understaffing that began around the time the pandemic set in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(City of Phoenix)<\/p>\n
Other citizens who addressed City Council prior to its adoption of the budget also complained about police spending, echoing Hernandez, who said the money should be taken away from police and spent on \u201caffordable housing and homeless prevention protection for reproductive health services, on rights for LGBTQ-plus community immigrants and refugee support services, racial equity and anti-discrimination initiatives, climate resiliency and environmental justice, public education and youth partnership initiatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The overtime report says fringe benefit costs associated with that extra pay \u201cexacerbate the cost of overtime.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThese pressures have coincided with staffing shortages and although staffing levels have started to improve, the use of overtime has remained elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report also states, \u201cPolice fiscal staff is also working to identify the amount of overtime needed to adequately respond to calls for service in a reasonable amount of time based on schedules, deployment methods, and staffing levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important to note that limited resources exist to provide programs and services to residents and any increase in overtime must be balanced with other needs in the PPD as well as other City departments.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report cites a study by the Police Executive Research Forum that found \u201cmany local police departments face similar issues with staffing shortages, recruiting challenges, and the use of overtime to meet service demands.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city is procuring a new system that \u201cis expected to significantly improve the PPD\u2019s ability to track, monitor and report overtime,\u201d the report notes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ongoing efforts to address system limitations and enhanced supervisory review are critical steps toward achieving a more efficient and wellness-focused overtime management system,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n
In a related report, Phoenix Police also have told the council subcommittee it is seeing a slow turnaround in its chronic inability to hire more officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past few years, the Phoenix Police Department has faced significant challenges in recruitment,\u201d that report states, adding:<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom 2020 to 2024, the number of sworn positions dropped from 3,125 to about 2,500 due to a notable decline in applications. During this period, the department averaged around 200 applications per month and managed to hire approximately 160 recruits annually.\u201d<\/p>\n
But last year the department \u201celiminated unnecessary barriers, and streamlining communication between the applicants and every person involved in the hiring process,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
Those changes doubled the monthly average of applications to as many as 500.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of July 2025, the Department received 3,071 applications from recruits, a significant increase from the 1,401 applications received by June 2024,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
Transfers from other law enforcement agencies increased from 112 to 184.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe academy class sizes also saw a substantial boost, with Class 1 growing from 14 to 30, Class 2 from 18 to 41, Class 3 from 18 to 45 and Class 4 from 24 to 32,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
Retention rates for academy recruits also has risen to 90%, according to the report, which states a critical factor has been that Phoenix pays police more than other local police departments. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Matt Giordano was sworn in last week as the new police chief.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u00a0city analysis says that while Phoenix Police spent over $98.56 million on overtime in the 2024-25 fiscal year,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":228308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,123376,5643,1587,82605,1589,78288,123374,17042,123375,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-228307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-anna-hernandez","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-az","12":"tag-matt-giordano","13":"tag-phoenix","14":"tag-phoenix-city-council","15":"tag-phoenix-general-fund","16":"tag-phoenix-police","17":"tag-phoenix-police-overtime-pay","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}