Police overtime in July unabated

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One month into the city’s fiscal year, the City of Buffalo’s efforts to rein in the cost of police overtime have not manifested any savings.

In the first two paychecks issued in the month of July, the city paid cops more than $1.9 million in overtime, according to city payroll data. Total pay for police in the pay periods covered by those checks was nearly $8.5 million.

In July 2024, police overtime cost a little more than $1.8 million out of $8.2 million total. The July before that, it was $1.6 million out of nearly $8 million total.

In other words, police overtime continues to creep higher, even when adjusted for inflation. Overtime as a percentage of overall pay for police in that one month is pretty close across all three years — between 22 and 22.5 percent. 

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Cutting overtime costs is central to balancing the current year’s budget, adopted in May by Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon and the Common Council. The spending plan — which covers July 1 to June 30 of next year — funds overtime pay at nearly $10 million less than the city’s actual average expenditure since 2021. 

This continues a trend set by the Brown administration, which underestimated overtime costs by $52 million over four budget cycles, contributing significantly to the city’s current financial crisis.

To keep the budget in balance, the Scanlon administration — and the incoming administration that takes over in January — will have to find savings in the police department, which consumes more overtime dollars than any other division of city government. In the budget year that ended June 30, police overtime cost the city about $18.5 million, according to city payroll records. The year before that, the figure was $17.5 million. For both years, that’s more than 42 percent of the city’s total overtime spending for a department that accounts for fewer than a third of its employees.

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Captain Patrick Humiston of the department’s Internal Affairs Division led the pack last month, pulling in more than $13,000 in overtime in the paychecks issued July 3 and July 17.

Another Internal Affairs officer, Lieutenant Andre Lloyd, took home more than $11,000 in overtime in those pay periods. So did Detective William Drabik of the department’s Casino Unit.

Officer DeQuinn Saunders, the mayor’s driver, earned the most overtime in one paycheck, according to payroll records — more than $7,500. Saunders took home just over $16,000 in July, with overtime accounting for about $8,700.

A spokesman for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment.

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