San Francisco cop reveals the staggering amount he earned in overtime pay in a year as police departments battle chronic staffing shortages

A San Francisco Police Sergeant quadrupled his net acknowledgment to immense hours logged arsenic overtime nan section suffers from staffing shortages.

Sergeant Dennis Lai earned much than $450,000 successful overtime salary past year, boosting his guidelines net of $180,000, according to information analyzed by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Data from nan San Francisco Controller's Office revealed overtime paid to constabulary officers has soared arsenic nan section struggles pinch staffing. 

The number of constabulary earning much than $100,000 successful overtime much than tripled from 131 successful nan July 2021-June 2022 fiscal twelvemonth to 493 successful nan July 2023-June 2024 fiscal year. 

'Unless you want to spot a catastrophic trim to constabulary services, nan City must either lick nan staffing situation aliases tally nan section done overtime,' said Tracy McCray, nan president of nan San Francisco Police Officers Association. 

'Most of our officers would for illustration to support their days disconnected and their scheduled vacations to walk clip pinch their families and loved ones alternatively than activity countless hours of overtime.'

Despite a metropolis rule that caps nan full number of overtime hours a full-time metropolis worker tin activity astatine 520 hours, the constabulary section headdress for overtime hours has 2,000 owed to a 'critical staffing shortage' exemption.

Lai worked almost 3,500 hours successful overtime, which is adjacent to moving 21-hour days if those shifts were divided evenly crossed 5 days each week of nan year, according to nan Chronicle's analysis.

The Controller's Office information showed that 64 officers worked beyond nan 2,000 hr headdress and much than 85 percent of officers surpassed nan 520 headdress that applies to different metropolis employees.

Evan Sernoffsky, a spokesperson for nan constabulary department, said that expanding overtime is simply a 'stopgap measure' for nan department.

'We admit that overtime is unsustainable, yet San Francisco requires constabulary for nationalist safety,' Sernoffsky said.

'We are supercharging our recruitment and backgrounding process to rebuild our ranks arsenic quickly arsenic possible.' 

He said nan constabulary section has 415 less sworn officers than it did successful 2020 but is seeing much recruits.

The San Francisco Police Department resorted to trying to enlistee cops from Texas arsenic it faces a shortage of officers.

They visited 4 Texas assemblage campuses passim nan period arsenic portion of a caller recruitment drive. 

The recruitment run comes aft nan constabulary section had backing cut, causing it to salary retired immense amounts of overtime while nan metropolis is experiencing a situation of homelessness and unfastened supplier use.

Following wide calls for reforms that swept nan federation pursuing nan execution of George Floyd, nan section successful nan California metropolis had it backing cut.

Mayor London Breed was 1 of nan first to openly speak retired successful support of defunding nan police.

In October, Breed ordered metropolis departments including constabulary and nationalist wellness to propose fund cuts of $206 cardinal successful a hopeless effort to reverse nan stricken city's 'doom loop' spiral into economical collapse.