For Austin’s fire, police and emergency medical professionals, overtime is just a fact of life. In the last budget year, overtime spending on those three departments was $84 million, according to city payroll data.
But after years of ballooning overtime payouts, Austin is throttling back some of that spending, asking its fire and police departments to possibly cut roughly $17 million, while pushing city staff to monitor how much the city spends and where it could spend smarter.
How much does the city spend on overtime?
The biggest overtime spender – by far – is the Austin Police Department. It makes sense. Police staff cover Austin’s special events like SXSW and ACL. On top of that, the department has been short-staffed for the better part of a decade.
APD had initially budgeted around $25 million for overtime for the 2024 budget, but spent nearly double that.
Why are cuts needed?
Austin’s facing a $33-million hole in its budget, and City Council is currently weighing whether to ask Austinites for additional money through a tax rate election…