Some officers in the New York City Police Department (NYPD) are almost doubling their annual salaries by collecting overtime amid the city’s skyrocketing violent crime.
Officers, whose base salary is $42,500, are managing in some instances to rake in six figures by making petty arrests at the end of their shifts, according to Bloomberg.
AS CRIME SOARS, DE BLASIO SAYS NYPD MUST BE ABOUT ‘CUSTOMER SERVICE’
Overtime costs for the department broke records in 2020, when officers clocked in more overtime than any other major city in the United States. One precinct in Brooklyn doled out $7.8 million in overtime.
Most officers logged approximately 375 hours in overtime during fiscal year 2020, though around 500 officers managed to get paid for 1,000 overtime hours.
During the same time period, violent crime in New York City has increased 5.6%.
In 2020, more than 5,300 New York police officers retired or quit, which represented a 75% increase from 2019, according to the New York Post.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who is running for mayor as a Democrat, has promised to cut the police department’s overtime budget by half.
“There are officers who will wait until the last half an hour of their tour and they will come up with some bogus collar or some offense. That’s what we’re not identifying, we’re not identifying those who are abusing the system for overtime,” he told Bloomberg.
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“The Department manages its overtime to ensure it is utilized in a manner that continues to prioritize public safety,” the NYPD told Fox News. “There are routine fluctuations in the amount of resources available over time and adjustments are made accordingly. The Department recently received significant reduction to its overtime allocation as reflected in the adopted budget.
“In regard to arrest-related overtime, it is worth noting that expenditures have declined steadily in the last 10 years,” the department added.