The Chicago Police Department (CPD) exceeded its overtime budget for 2024 just six months into the year as the force grapples with massive staffing shortages and a dismal budget shortfall, WTTW News reported Monday.
Chicago has already spent $129 million in the first six months of 2024 on overtime pay for its police officers, which is 30% more than the city council allocated in the 2024 budget, according to records obtained by WTTW News. Overtime is now on pace to cost $258 million by the end of the year as the city struggles with a massive projected $982 million budget gap for fiscal year 2025.
“We regularly review our use of overtime to ensure it is being used appropriately while balancing the need for public safety,” a CPD spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We understand our fiscal responsibility and will continue ensuring overtime is being used to maintain and bolster public safety.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was elected in 2023, cut down the size of the CPD during his administration, removing 833 police jobs in his first year in office and having 1,600 fewer officers than at the start of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, according to the Illinois Policy Institute in May. He also recently let the city’s contract for ShotSpotter, a gunshot tracking device, expire despite most of the Chicago aldermen voting to keep it, according to ABC 7 on Sept. 23.
The overtime surge occurred despite CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling cutting the CPD’s Strategic Deployment Initiative during his first year, which relied on overtime and included assignments such as “scarecrowing,” where officers would sit with their lights on in hotspots around the city, according to WTTW News. CPD officers spent 1 million hours on these shifts alone.
“During Superintendent Snelling’s first year leading CPD, he ended the Strategic Deployment Initiative, which relied on overtime. As this initiative ended, CPD focused on strategic deployments within District and Area operations to ensure our resources are being used efficiently and effectively,” the CPD spokesperson told the DCNF. “We have also been judicious in utilizing canceled days off and overtime, only utilizing it when necessary, including during major events such as the Democratic National Convention.”
Snelling said CPD was down “2,000 officers” even before the Democratic National Convention in August, and described the shortage as a “huge concern,” according to CBS. The shortfall coincides with an 7.6% increase in violent crime from July 2023 to June 2024, according to the Illinois Policy Institute in July.
CPD set a record for overtime hours last year, clocking 4.5 million in 2023 compared to 1.4 million in 2022. That extra pay cost taxpayers $300 million in 2023.
Johnson’s administration initially announced a series of hiring freezes for government employees that appeared to include the CPD, with many city officials saying there was no indication of any other interpretation. However, he then backed out of the position, claiming that CPD was exempt from the freezes all along.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/YouTube/FOX32Chicago)
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