New City Audit Reveals Shocking Lack of Financial Controls at SFPD
Officers Calling in Sick to Work Private Security (10B) Gigs, Lieutenants Signing Off on Their Own Overtime, Millions Spent on “Special Initiatives” With No Plan or Accountability
As the city faces a massive deficit, an explosive new audit from the Budget and Legislative Analyst finds that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) broke laws and policies related to overtime spending and usage, failed to provide oversight of overtime usage and approvals, and failed to enforce provisions of city’s Memorandum of Understanding with the Police Officers Association. The audit was requested by Supervisor Dean Preston, Chair of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, after the San Francisco Police Department overspent its overtime budget by $55.6 million in March 2023, which required the Board to appropriate $25 million in additional funds to cover the department’s overspending.
“As the city faces a serious deficit and services for our most vulnerable neighbors are on the chopping block, it is more important than ever for the next administration and incoming Board of Supervisors to ensure that the police department follows the law and addresses its runaway overtime spending,” stated Preston. “We can work toward public safety while not allowing the police department to keep exponentially increasing overtime hours, failing to seek timely approval for massive cost overruns, and spending tens of millions of dollars with little to no apparent oversight, transparency, or strategy.”
According to the audit, “Our in-depth review of paid sick leave use in FY 2022-23 revealed potential abuse patterns, including frequent sick leave use on specific days of the week (often the first or last day of a work week), Saturdays and Sundays to avoid weekend duties, and coinciding with working voluntary 10B overtime.” The audit found that SFPD does not adequately monitor officers’ use of overtime to ensure that officers do not routinely work overtime exceeding department overtime caps or violate overtime limits set forth by Administrative Code section 18.13-1, which limits the maximum permissible hours of overtime an employee can earn in a year.
Additional findings in the audit include:
Overtime expenditures totaled $108.4M in the audit period (FY 2018-19 - FY 2022-23)
A small number of officers–12%– were responsible for 32% of SFPD’s overtime hours.
Sick leave and injury-related leave use by SFPD sworn staff increased 77% over 5 years, with potential abuse patterns
SFPD did not enforce existing absenteeism policies or adequately monitor attendance
SFPD violated key provisions of the MOU with the POA, allowing 51,000 ineligible 10B overtime hours between 2020-2023
13% of overtime cards (which require two separate verifying and approving signatures for overtime) were either missing one or more required signatures, had two of the same signatures, or had lieutenants or sergeants approving their own overtime
No established performance metrics or criteria for “special initiatives,” despite the fact that SFPD worked 319,945 overtime hours under the special initiatives during the audit period at a total estimated cost to the General Fund of $30,824,783
The audit contains 30 recommendations, including recommendations to implement a monitoring system to manage overtime to reduce violations of established overtime limits, conduct regular internal audits of sick leave usage to reduce abuse, and audit and review use of backfill overtime to ensure that the use of non-patrol backfill overtime was appropriate. Notably, in its written response to the audit, SFPD agreed with most of the recommendations.
The overtime audit comes at a time when SFPD has been provided unprecedented budget increases. SFPD has a total budget of $821 million, the highest budget the department has ever had despite declining calls for service over the past several years. The budget has increased by over $200 million since 2020. At the time that SFPD sought a $25 million supplemental in March 2023, 911 calls had decreased by 21.6%, and self-initiated calls— or calls initiated by officers instead of 911 reports— had decreased by 55.7%. With declining calls for service, increasing spending, and little transparency on deployment decisions, Preston called for this audit in 2023 and the audit motion was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors.
“I knew it was bad, but not this bad,” said Supervisor Preston. “The violation of laws and contracts, the lack of oversight, and the abuse of overtime are alarming and require immediate intervention and oversight.”
