Over overspending

Surprising no one, Comptroller Brad Lander has a report showing that the NYPD has already blown its annual overtime budget by about $100 million, ballooning what is already supposed to be extra spending. The NYPD has been pledging to limit its overtime spending costs for years, but these efforts seem half-hearted at best. After all, why should it make a real attempt when it’s taken as a given that the money will keep flowing regardless? That’s not a luxury afforded to any other municipal agency or department, because we understand that blank checks not only allow but actively incentivize overspending.

Leaders from One Police Plaza often claim that the overtime is downstream from unexpected or unforeseen costs, but it’s difficult to imagine how unexpected costs could add up to almost 15% of the agency’s annual budgeted operating costs in overtime. Either that explanation is misdirection, or the agency is rather very bad at actually estimating what extraordinary circumstances it might face over the course of a year, particularly given that a number of them — like parades and holidays — are not unpredictable but happen at the same time and require the same resources every year.

This is zero sum. Every dollar spent is a dollar that doesn’t go to some other city service, and it’s perfectly valid to ask what exactly we’re getting in return for that investment as taxpayers, particularly as City Hall eyes steep cuts in the budgets for other public services like schools and libraries.

Mayor Adams, who has prided himself on being something of a pragmatist and a fiscal hawk with initiatives like the return of the Program to Eliminate the Gap, should not give the department a pass just because he used to wear the uniform. He should make good on his campaign promise to cut NYPD overtime spending in half, better late (he promised to do so in his first year in office) than never. That’s still not what we’d call a success, but a good start.