Local
D.C. looks for funds to pay police overtime during inaugural week
By: Bill Myers
Examiner Staff Writer
December 22, 2008
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| All 4,000 District police officers will work 12-hour shifts on six days during inaugural week, under new executive orders signed by Chief Cathy Lanier. (Examiner File) |
Under executive orders signed by Chief Cathy Lanier earlier this month, all 4,000 D.C. police officers will work 12-hour shifts on six days during the week surrounding President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing in. Firefighters and paramedics will have their regularly scheduled days off revoked, spokesman Alan Etter told The Examiner.
Under their union contract, police officers and firefighters must be paid time-and-a-half for overtime. But they’ll also be working weekends and the inaugural is counted as a holiday.
That means that rank-and-file cops and firefighters will be making two-and-a-half times their normal wages for much of the week.
The tab for all this is not clear: City Administrator Dan Tangherlini is leading efforts to figure out total costs and how to pay for them. He didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.
D.C. has recruited at least 4,000 extra officers from other cities and states. The extra officers will be put up in hotels near Baltimore at D.C. taxpayer expense.
Firefighters around the region will be on standby and could be called to help D.C. respond to emergencies, Etter said.
The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department refused a request from the District to provide 350 sheriff’s deputies without reimbursement.
Congress has appropriated $15 million to help the city offset its inauguration week costs.
“It’s not even close enough,” said Mafara Hobson, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s spokeswoman.
The city is lobbying Congress for millions more.
Last fiscal year, the police department overspent its overtime budget by nearly $10 million, records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show. The department’s overtime budget is lower this year.
The D.C. Council had to scramble to close a $131 million budget shortfall in October. On Friday, Chief Finance Officer Natwar Gandhi said the city is facing an additional $127 million shortfall for the current fiscal year.
“Everybody’s scrambling,” D.C. Councilman Phil Mendelson, D-at large, said. “There’s planning going on, but I can’t tell you whether it’s foolish planning or not.”
