Case Study

City of Oakland, CA
Police Department Overtime Practices Assessment

In February 2005, the City of Oakland, California engaged PFM to assess the Oakland Police Department's overtime practices and provide recommendations to strengthen overtime controls and initiatives to reduce overtime costs. Over the course of the engagement, PFM analyzed payroll data and overtime expenditures for the prior five years to determine financial and personnel trends associated with overtime for the organization as a whole and by unit. We also worked closely with senior management to understand the policing priorities and requirements and current practices that lent themselves to potential overtime abuse. PFM also studied the provisions of the current Memorandum of Understanding that impact the use of overtime to both conduct a comparative analysis of the City's MOU to other California police departments and to make recommendations regarding adjustments to these provisions that could achieve overtime savings.

At the conclusion of our analysis, PFM provided the City with 71 savings initiatives to reduce overtime spending, recover overtime costs, and strengthen controls. Of these recommendations, 26 dealt with overtime savings and cost recovery; 18 addressed controls and monitoring; 28 initiatives provided recommendations related to the City's MOU with the police union. The broad based approach of providing solutions that addressed the overtime problem with a wide range of quantifiable and specific methods to improve efficiency and reduce overtime allowed the City to have maximum flexibility to select initiatives that they thought would have the most impact on both an immediate and long-term basis.