Baltimore City Police Det. Albert Marcus must be a very busy man. He worked 3,695 overtime hours in 2006 ? putting in an average of 114 hours each week.
The $104,423 he earned from overtime bumped his pay to $167,421, the most of anyone in the department, including Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm, according to an Examiner analysis of salary data from the city.
He was not alone in burning the midnight oil at the Police Department. Thirty-six other officers at least doubled their time in 2006, many boosting their pay by 100 percent or more.
Officer Julie Pitocchelli turned her $55,649 annual salary into $143,517 from long hours fighting crime. One hundred and twenty-one earned more than $100,000 in 2006, many because of overtime.
So many people put in so many extra hours that the department logged more than 1.5 million hours of overtime in 2006, spending nearly $37 million in the process, after budgeting $7 million. And if understating the budget by over 500 percent weren?t enough, the overall figure more than doubled the $18 million the department spent on overtime in 2005. Police spokesman Matt Jablow said the department spent $29 million on overtime in 2006. He could not provide police department data in time to analyze before printing.
Did this raise any red flags to any supervisor or to Hamm ? or to then-Mayor Martin O?Malley? If his heralded CitiStat auditing system couldn?t catch these “blips” we wonder how effective the state version will be at monitoring spending.
The Examiner revealed earlier this year that six officers have been suspended for allegations of overtime fraud, including Sgt. Darryl Massey, who is listed as one those working the most overtime in the department. We?d like Mayor Sheila Dixon and Hamm to communicate where that investigation stands and when the department plans to scrutinize the work habits of all officers on the list, not to mention the 335 others not included for space reasons who worked between a half and full year in extra hours. (Click here for a full list of police salaries and overtime in 2006.)
Protecting Baltimore?s residents must be a top priority. But at what cost? Taxpayers must know our money actually is getting real results reducing crime. And the many officers who faithfully fulfill their duties must not be forced to work in a culture that promotes waste and fraud.
The City Council must not approve any funds for police overtime until the department provides a full accounting of why so many officers needed to work so many extra hours and specific benefits to taxpayers. It must also show a system of checks and balances exists to monitor overtime. Taxpayers must not finance a slush fund.
Read today’s news story, ‘City spends millions on overtime’.
ExamiNation daily discussion: What would you do with $104,000 in overtime pay?
