ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News uncovered a newly released audit, detailing more than $50 million in unbudgeted overtime spending in the City of Atlanta for 2017 alone.
The interim report concludes the city failed to properly budget for OT spending for several years.
The audit, which examines fiscal years 2013 to present, also reveals Atlanta Police Department OT spending increased by 200-percent in that time period.
Now city officials are trying to pinpoint whether the spending was authorized and due to factors outside of job vacancies.
“Well you can’t have people who have a $45,000 salary making six figures,” said Howard Shook, chairman of the city finance committee. “If you do, there’s a really bad problem there.”
Shook ordered the audit back in January. It is the first look at city-wide overtime spending.
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“I can’t say I’m shocked, but it is somewhat dismal to see it was as bad as we thought and it has been growing for a little bit longer than we thought,” Shook said.
Highlights from the audit include the following:
- Over the past five years, all city overtime expenses have more than doubled, bringing unbudgeted overtime to $54 million in 2017 alone.
- Most of the overtime expenses come from the Atlanta Police Department. In 2017, it spent $24 million in overtime, nearly matching the OT expenses for six city departments combined, including the short-staffed Atlanta Fire and Rescue.
- Since 2013, APD OT expenses have risen 217%.
- APD was not in line with city code for overtime, according to the Fair Labor Standards Act. In some cases, the city authorized more generous pay than the law mandates.
- APD's manual processing system had no built-in spending controls.
APD’s recent budget presentation to the city noted increased special event duties and force vacancies.
“The Chief Financial Officer said a lot of it was event-based, but it didn’t appear to be event-based,” said Amanda Noble, the city’s chief auditor.
Noble said auditors will examine whether proper authorization was in place, and at this point, they cannot conclude that job vacancies were a sole factor in exceeding the overtime budget.
“Mainly because we were having difficulties getting accurate historical vacancy reports after the cyberattack,” Noble told Carr.
In a statement to Channel 2 Action News, the Atlanta Police Department said it was enacting an overtime oversight plan to address the vast increase in spending, but contrary to the auditor's findings, it stood by special event planning as a reason behind the expenditures.
“The City of Atlanta plays host to many major events every year that require multiple layers of security, sometimes for days at a time. The Department’s ability to pay overtime is critical to our ability to ensure public safety coverage for these planned major events – as well as unexpected or impromptu incidents, marches and demonstrations,” Spokesman Carlos Campos said.
“Additionally, the Department currently has a number of sworn officer vacancies that have been widely reported. We have been using overtime to ensure there are no gaps in public safety resulting from those vacancies. Having said that, we are aware of the report by the City Auditor’s Office on overtime and have been working diligently to bring these costs down. We are appreciative of the auditor’s work and findings, many of which we were
already aware, and have already taken action to address the concerns.We clearly understand that overtime payouts should not be viewed as a blank check written to officers. We have a responsibility to ensure any overtime money is spent wisely and effectively.”
The statement goes on to say Chief Ericka Shields enacted the following OT oversight earlier this year:
- Creation of an electronic tracking system so that the department is able to see, in real-time, who is working overtime, how much it is costing, where it is being worked and what supervisor is authorizing it.
- Centralization of overtime tracking so that there are specific employees responsible for monitoring overtime costs, productivity and effectiveness.
- Development of a department policy to provide clear guidance to employees on expectations with regard to working overtime.
- An expectation that overtime be worked primarily for crime-fighting purposes, particularly to address real-time crime trends.
Who is responsible?
A full assessment is underway to see whether any unauthorized overtime was granted , and how much of it can be attributed to job vacancies. They need to figure out if negligence is at play.
“One of the risks (of that) is that you’re paying overtime when it’s not authorized or you’re paying overtime when it’s not budgeted,” said Noble. “And apparently we’re paying overtime that’s not budgeted and the feeling was that the salary savings from vacancies would cover it.”
The latter that was far from the case.
Shook came short of blaming former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed for the surprising figures, but the Atlanta Police Union said it had warned the administration of the pending shortfalls for years.
“Here’s the problem,” said Union rep Vince Champion. “They’ve had oversight of overtime through the City of Atlanta for a long time. Go back and look. Until Mayor Reed came in. This is when it started happening.”
“People have told him, at least in his administration, these problems were there, no one listened,” Champion said.
The union warned against OT being a band-aid over low force numbers.
“You know, used to, they’d (cities) make a statement that uh, ‘we don’t really care about the pay, we just want a warm body in the car,’” Champion said. “Well after about so many hours, that’s all you get is a warm body in the car.”
Shook said it’s clear that some mismanagement was involved, but he did not explicitly blame the Reed Administration.
“It takes a boss, and here that’s the mayor operating through the COO,” Shook said, referring to the budget remedy.
He noted the elections and a recent administration change, as he said the city is eager to examine solutions to issues exposed in the audit.
“There have been a lot of things that have been distracting people around here from their normal,, everyday mission,” Shook said. “So hopefully that’s all going to come to an end and we’re going to get back to the business of running the city.”
Spokesmen for former Mayor Reed and Mayor Keisha Bottoms did not respond to request for comment on the audit findings placed Tuesday afternoon.
A final audit report is due this fall.