Five, five, five, five, five, five, five, uh, five, five, five, uh, five, five, five, five.

I think we have a five.

My name is Henry Santana.

I'm large city counselor, and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Criminal justice.

Today is May nineteenth, twenty twenty six.

And the exact time is 10 14 a.m.

This hearing is being recorded.

It is also being live streamed at Boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcasted on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Files Channel 964.

Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.ps at Boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors.

Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing.

Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify.

If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber.

If you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison ShanePack at Shane.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing is on dockets number 0591, order for a hearing to review funding, reimbursement, and accountability for the police overtime details in the city of Boston.

This matter was sponsored by Councillor Murphy, Counselor Fitzgerald, and Councillor Flynn, and was referred to the committee on March 18, 2026.

And docket number 0696, order for a hearing to discuss Boston's police department's staffing levels.

This matter was sponsored by Councillor Murphy, Councillor Flynn, and was referred to the committee on April 1st, 2026.

Today I am joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councillor Flynn, Counselor Murphy, and Counselor Fitzgerald.

Before I introduce today's panel, really appreciate Lisa being here with us.

I'm going to give the opportunity for my colleagues to give brief opening statements, starting with the lead sponsor, and then we'll go in order of arrival.

Counselor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Lisa, for being here.

And I know how hard you work, and you were also here all day last week.

We did have our police budget hearing last week, so thank you for your always professionalism and the answers you can give us.

So happy you came back.

Unfortunate that the police commissioner is not here.

Um we will go forward.

So both these hearing orders along with Council Flynn and Fitzgerald.

The one which one are we talking about first?

This is order for interreview funding, reimbursement, and accountability.

And I know I touched on this last week a little bit about the questions, but time and time again, a big piece of the conversation around police funding and wanting to defund is around the amount of money we spend on overtime and a lot of overtime work that police do is related to details and it's very separate than actually overtime covering shifts and stuff.

So if um today I'm just hoping to get more clear understanding because I do know that many um companies like Boston Water and Sewer, Feeny Brothers, others are expected to pay for that over time when the details are given out.

So I think it's important, especially in this budget cycle where it's the first one since I've been here on the council where we have to be making some hard decisions and really making sure that our decisions are supporting and defending the hard work that the men and women of the police department do.

So thank you for being here.

Looking forward to what we can.

I don't want to waste your time, but appreciate that you're here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Murphy.

Counselor Flynn, do you have the floor?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I also want to acknowledge Lisa O'Brien, an outstanding dedicated professional at the Boston Police Department.

Thank you for being here, Lisa, and for your commitment to the residents of the city.

The longstanding issues of understaffing, overstretched resources, forced overtime, rooming retirements of the Boston Police Department is a public safety and public health emergency, which also disregards officers' personal physical and emotional well-being, as well as that of their families.

In July of 1980, the minimum number of patrolmen at any given time for the Boston Police Department rose from 2300 to 2500 by law in the city municipal code to ensure adequate staffing among detailing projects in other police duties.

The increase in voluntary retirement in resignations is resulting in mandatory overtime for police officers.

In fact, resignations rose from one in 2018 to 36 in 2022, while voluntary retirements rose from 17 in 2018 to 127 in 2022.

Current staff is ordered to fill those gaps, resulting in the physical and emotional burnout of the offices, but don't potentially diminishing ability to serve Boston residents.

The environment at the Boston Police Department must be one that fosters a strong relationship within the community.

It is important that there is trust between officers and the residents and officers and their superiors.

Officers who feel valued and respected are more likely to have positive interaction with the public, ultimately improving trust and cooperation through community policing.

Boston police needs a consistent influx of recruits to replace those that are retiring, resigning, transferring to other police departments throughout Massachusetts to help prevent shortages.

There are several recruiting practices that can be put in place to increase staffing, including mentorship programs, incentive programs, community outreach.

It is critical that the city of Boston act promptly to ensure that the Boston Police Department is confidently in excess of 2,500 officers to prevent the overstretched resources, forced overtime, overworked offices that is that resulted in ongoing emergency and crisis.

I also want to highlight that we as a city and society used to treat this profession with the utmost respect.

When we were in grade school and a police officer would visit the class, we we were taught to respect them for keeping our neighbors safe.

Now they are working mandatory overtime, 17-hour days, missing significant time with their families, and not all always treated with respect by the public, by elected officials in the city.

We have to restore the respect for the profession to keep morale up so officers stay in the job so that they don't transfer to other police departments or elsewhere, and so that we can recruit a new generation of police officers during this challenging time.

Police officers are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution.