Review board says amount of overtime worked by Pittsburgh police could put public at risk

PITTSBURGH — A Channel 11 investigation revealed there's no limit on how much overtime Pittsburgh police officers can work. The city budgeted nearly $10 million in 2016 for police overtime, but critics say that's money that could have been used to hire additional officers. Beth Pittinger of the Citizen Police Review Board says the long hours that add up to all that overtime can put public safety at risk, because those officers could theoretically work 100 hours a week. That would add up to 14 hours a day with no days off.

A picture of a Pittsburgh police officer sleeping in her cruiser called attention to the issue, because according to sources, that officer had been working overtime. Documents uncovered in Channel 11's investigation determined that Pittsburgh police officers had clocked more than 209,000 hours of overtime through October 2016. That adds up to a cost of $9.2 million paid by taxpayers. In 2015, the total cost of overtime was $9.4 million for nearly 193,000 hours total.

The Citizens Police Review Board said the solution is to hire more police officers. But Pittsburgh's office management and budget director, Sam Ashbaugh, said the city already has more officers than it's had in years, and a plan to have 907 officers in uniform by 2017. Ashbaugh said sometimes overtime is unavoidable, like for court appearances, protests or sports teams making the playoffs.

"When you have a large crowd, it's the city's duty to make sure the public is safe," said Ashbaugh.

The police union said the force is still understaffed because of budget constraints, and added the officers are also underpaid, forcing them to make up the difference by working overtime and secondary jobs.

Cox Media Group