It’s almost as if there’s no plan to do anything about it.
Mayor John Whitmire
Overtime spending at the city’s police and fire departments is worsening the budget gap Houston City Council must close this summer, with Controller Chris Hollins’ office now projecting a $174 million deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
Finance Director Melissa Dubowski and Deputy Controller Will Jones told council members during a Tuesday budget hearing that the fire department is over budget by $51 million and the police department is over by $16 million. Three-quarters of both figures are attributed to overtime, they said.
When officials passed the current budget last summer, the projected deficit for the coming fiscal year was $76 million, Jones said. That worsened to $129 million after the council voted not to raise property taxes last fall.
Dubowski told council members Tuesday that the departments have been trending over budget for most of the current fiscal year. Some overtime is unpredictable, she said, but a lot of the departments’ current spending “is related to operational need.”
“We’re really going to be working with the departments on what is core operational overtime and how that will look for the purposes of budgeting,” Dubowski said.
Hollins’ office has flagged high overtime spending for more than a year. In February, his office projected the city was on pace to be $54 million over its overtime budget due to public safety and Solid Waste operations. Houston was $71.4 million over its overtime budget last fiscal year.
The controller’s office has three audits planned on overtime costs: one citywide and one each for the police and fire departments, according to an audit report also presented Tuesday.
An analysis by the Houston Chronicle revealed some officers at the police department had tripled their take-home pay through overtime, particularly through time in court for traffic ticket enforcement.
Mayor John Whitmire has yet to publicly present a plan for how he will address the city’s budget deficit.
See here for the background. You will note that Controller Chris Hollins was dead on right back then when he said what the actual deficit due to overtime expenses would be. Mayor Whitmire, meanwhile, is in denial and has nothing to say on the topic. And so here we are.