As city leaders ready to review Austin's next fiscal year budget, new reporting from public safety departments shows their overtime costs are far exceeding departments' current allocations.
The setup
Austin Fire, the Austin Police Department and Austin/Travis County Emergency Medical Services make up the majority of the city general fund, the portion of Austin's overall $6.3 billion budget covering most public-facing services. Almost two-thirds of the $1.49 billion general fund is reserved for public safety in the current fiscal year 2025-26.Overtime spending by APD, Austin Fire and ATCEMS was one of many areas of focus for City Council members as they reviewed Austin's FY 2025-26 budget. When approving the initial version of the spending plan last August, officials passed a resolution from council member Ryan Alter that called to publicize monthly overtime reports with the aim of better managing those hours.
“I was concerned that we would get to this year's budget and learn for the first time that a certain department, whether that's police, fire, EMS, or multiple, had overspent their overtime. We've seen that happen in the past," Alter said in an interview. "I wanted to make sure that we knew what was coming; we were able to, at a bare minimum, prepare for it. But hopefully mitigate it by having that insight."
The departments initially developed more in-depth dashboards in response to the council directive, but their chiefs announced a shift to "streamlined and simplified" versions in a July 2 memo. Monthly police, fire and EMS data is now available online.
By the numbers
Spending activity reported through this spring shows APD and Austin Fire are heading well beyond their overtime budgets this year, while the EMS department remains several million dollars below its limit. As of the spring, the police department had nearly reached its fiscal year overtime allocation, and the fire department had already used over a third more than it has available.
An average of $2.2 million is budgeted for APD overtime every month, a threshold that's been consistently exceeded since the start of the fiscal year. The police department's overtime peaked at $5.2 million in March during the spring festival season, and from October through May, it reported almost 64,000 overtime hours used at a total cost of nearly $26 million.
Austin Fire surpassed its overtime budget for this year by millions of dollars after spending double or more its allocation almost every month. The department's $12 million in overtime spending through April was 230% of its year-to-date budget at that point, and well above its $8.95 million budget for the full fiscal year.
On the other hand, EMS remains well below its limits despite using almost 203,000 hours of overtime as of the spring. The department passed its average monthly budget once, and spent $11.53 million of its nearly $15 million year-to-date budget through May—representing just 81% of its total allocation to that point.
Alter acknowledged the hard work of all sworn public safety officers and noted that Austin Fire is contending with new staffing requirements and less flexibility under firefighters' latest labor agreement. Still, he said reported results show some departments haven't scaled back daily operations to meet this year's financial constraints.
"We see them go over their overtime budget year after year. And that's something that we need to get a better handle on," he said. "Because you look at EMS, they're making really difficult choices in order to stay within their appropriation. They took certain units offline, they shifted staffing. And that has real-world implications, but it also allowed for them to stay within their budget."
Increased staffing across public safety departments would represent a more sustainable fix to heavy overtime use, Alter said. Sworn police and medic vacancy rates remain among the highest of all city departments, although Austin's sworn firefighter staff is almost full. The departments' sworn vacancies as of May totaled:
- 347 of APD's 1,819-officer force, or more than 19%
- 129 of 714 EMS positions, more than 18%
- 54 of 1,303 firefighters, just over 4%
What's next
City Manager T.C. Broadnax is scheduled to release his FY 2026-27 budget proposal July 16, kicking off a month of review before council members adopt the plan. Social service funding is one area expected to drop by millions of dollars to fill funding gaps, and budget officials previewed the impact of those cuts in early July. It remains to be seen how the city will address this year's public safety overtime overruns through the upcoming process, or how much will be allocated for next year and beyond.
“There is no silver bullet here, and it's expensive, and it's a necessary service of the city," Alter said. "We're just having to balance that cost against all the other important costs to running a city, and figure out what we can and can’t afford.”
The public safety overtime reports may continue to evolve over the coming months. Department chiefs reported some challenges with data consolidation so far, and said their staffs are now working with Austin Technology Services to launch a fully automated, "sustainable and comprehensive" live dashboard before next April.
"This timeline includes the work necessary to establish the required data integrations, governance, technology capabilities, and contingency for procurement of professional services or enablement technologies required to support implementation," they wrote.
