The overview
Houston’s general fund only budgeted $65 million for overtime spending; however, Deputy City Controller Will Jones said during the committee meeting that the police, fire and solid waste departments have exceeded their overtime spending each month this fiscal year. The city is on track to spend nearly $137 million on overtime by the end of the fiscal year on June 30—twice more than what was budgeted.
Jones said solid waste is the largest overtime spender among civilian departments, while police and fire are both significant drivers in classified departments.
- Solid waste department: was budgeted $4 million in overtime, but is expected to spend $7.1 million by the end of the fiscal year.
- Fire department: was budgeted $45.3 million in overtime, but is on track to spend $88 million by the end of the fiscal year.
- Police department: was budgeted $13.7 million in overtime, but is on track to spend $39.8 million by the end of the fiscal year.
The cause
Controller Chris Hollins said during the City Council meeting that staffing shortages and recruiting challenges are factors for this excessive overtime spending. This is despite the departments’ efforts to increase staffing, such as the police department increasing salaries for cadets, negotiations with the police union to potentially further increase salaries and firefighters receiving a pay increase following a new contract with the firefighters' union. Jones said the rise of violent crimes have increased service calls for the fire and police departments.
With budget season emerging, Hollins reminded council members of the $330 million budget shortfall the city is facing. He said his office is conducting an audit of overtime practices and budget executions within these departments to identify solutions.
“This level of overtime spending represents a significant budget challenge, but identifying the problem is the first step to solving it,” Hollins said in an April 1 news release. “We’ve conducted our planned audits to enable us to move from conversations about the issue to solutions that help restore stability, strengthen services and build long-term trust in how the city manages taxpayer dollars.”
What they’re saying
The Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association released a statement April 1, pushing back on the controller’s report and said he was “mischaracterizing” overtime numbers, and that years of neglect left the Houston Fire Department understaffed by about 800 firefighters. The statement said excessive overtime has been necessary to maintain emergency response levels and keep Houston safe.
“We are frustrated that we are even having to defend the truth,” HPFFA President Patrick Lancton said in the statement. “We’re focused on returning HFD to the world class department our city deserves, and we will not sit back and let misinformation undermine the hard work we’re doing to fix the damage caused by years of neglect.”
Council member Edward Pollard during the council meeting questioned whether this excess in overtime spending will affect the already $330 million budget shortfall. Finance director Melissa Dubowski said it won’t.
“With all the initiatives that we’ve been working on over the last year, that budgetary gap has decreased, and we’re going to be presenting that when we present the [next year’s] budget,” Dubowski said.
Mayor John Whitmire said this report doesn’t paint a full picture and that the controller’s report isn’t comparing apples to apples.
“This has been an unusual year with the need for overtime,” Whitmire said. “We’ve got new directors from the three departments that were highlighted, we’ve had several storms, we’ve had the suspended police cases. We're meeting the public's demand for additional services and doing it responsibly.”
