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.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Flynn.

I want to acknowledge we've been joined by Councillor Weber.

We're gonna go to Council Fitzgerald and then we'll go to the Council Weber.

Council Fitzgerald, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here.

I look forward to learning more about funding reimbursement overtime and things of that nature to educate myself and hopefully officers some solutions to you as well that you could tell me whether I'm crazy or not, and uh and uh look forward to it happening.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Counselor Fitzgerald.

Counselor Weber, you have the floor.

Uh yeah, sure.

Um, I think uh, as we saw yesterday, we have uh a 70 million dollar uh deficit in our budget.

Um, a lot of that is because increased costs and uh maybe all that 70 million could be uh attributed to uh spending over budget on police overtime.

Um we have uh tried to uh obtain data that shows how many hours we're working by the different categories, but also how much are people actually working.

You know, we've of course, you know, we've heard from officers who are working double shifts every day, but just to actually get the data on how often people are working double shifts, how often they're being called in uh, you know, on their off days.

Um I maybe one of my maybe my colleagues have that data.

I I don't have that data, um, but we need to make sure you know people uh can work and uh and also live and raise a family, but at the same time we we have um overtime spending here in the city that's having real impacts on almost every other aspect of the services we provide.

And so if you look at a city like Seattle, you know there's complaints there because the police department and this is in a similar similarly sized city slightly larger in fact because they paid 500 thousand hours in a year for police overtime here in Boston three years ago we paid 1.3 million hours in police overtime so um you know I'm glad we could have this conversation uh we could figure out what's actually happening um how you know what the burden on our police officers who who do uh great work for the city uh but also how to manage the system in a way that um we're not uh you know uh unnecessarily draining the city's coffers which is you know kind of like what we're having a extensive debate about what to do uh on this year's but actually next year's budget because of the overtime we're spending in the police department so um thank you very much chair and I look forward to the conversation thank you counselor Weber I would now I'd like to introduce today's panelists with us today we have Lisa O'Brien um Bureau of Administration and technology chief with the Boston police department I'm gonna turn over the floor to you Lisa thank you again for being here um and um you know answering our questions um I'll turn the floor for you if you have any open remarks or presentation that you want to give and we'll go into counselors questions.

I just want to thank the counselors um good morning and thank you for allowing me to come here today and answer any questions that you may have and hopefully I can answer them as as much as hopefully I can answer them with what you have questions.

But thank you for having me here today.

Okay thank you.

Awesome so we're now gonna go um to counselor murphy we're gonna do um six minutes and then we'll do a second round if needed um counselor Murphy you have the floor thank you um thank you Lisa for being here I do just want to put on the record that you weren't the only person from the administration that we had invited we invited Commissioner Cox to be here also and I do think that um although I know you have the answers we may need for some of these questions that hearing directly from the person who makes these decisions um I feel is necessary and the reason we found out just this morning and I have a feeling they knew all along that he was never gonna show up is that he was here last week at our budget hearing where we do call in every department and the heads come in but the commissioner makes 359,895 dollars a year that's close to a thousand dollars a day so to use an excuse because he was here at work last week to answer all of our colleagues questions that weren't only related to this issue is insulting to me.

So being expected to come back for a hearing that will probably last an hour an hour and a half and not showing the respect to the body who funds his salary and all of you know the good work the police do I think is insulting but that being said if you could if we could start with details if you could just explain given overview of the different types of details they there are um and how many like in the past if we want to use the past couple years of you know details that we've had and how many go like on unfilled filled thank you yes unfilled and the difference I think I I think I understand this but if you could also explain just for those listening um the difference between filling a detail and then the overtime and how that's different and also when offices get paid through filling a detail.

Is that also not part of their pension?

If you could just talk through some of those basics, that would help us ground us into then asking more questions.

So I first want to start out with that um pay details are not part of fund 100, the general fund.

It doesn't, it's not reflected on our budget anywhere unless there is a receivable on the books that was deemed uncollectible.

But paid details are paid by the vendor.

Officers work in these details or on a paid that day off or a vacation, or some of the other reason why he can work that detail is not during his regular tour of duty.

Um I want to say that we have a high collection rate of these receivables, so not much has been written off to the overtime budget.

I think the greatest amount that was uh written off was in 2013 when they actually put the receivables on the city's books and we had an auditor come in and this goes way back, but for the most part, I I give um kudos to my my detail manager Denise Merlino and her team because they have a great track of doing collections.

We do all the collections in-house, and they do a pretty good job.

Um I want to say that uh police details as of fiscal year um 26 as of 430, um 59,295,000 was billed, 48,790,000 was collected.

So right now we have an 82 collection rate that will go up.

Um some of the bigger jobs, such as NSTAR and Key SPAN, there are they have multiple projects within their companies, so it have massive amounts of details coming in.

They have to sort through those and assign them to their various projects, but they do pay it.

It you'll see that rate go up as the the year progresses.

How much are they charged?

Is every job the same rate?

How much do these companies get charged?

No, so so the hourly rate for um details is type one and type two details.

Um type one have to has to be filled first before an officer can take a type two detail.

So that's making sure that big venues um you know construction areas and high traffic areas are filled first.

Um the hourly rate for type one details is eighty.

Excuse me why I get that out.

So for a police officer type one details, the hourly rate is 86.81 cents.

Is it the same rate for type two?

Um type two is eighty, eighty or police officer.

Thank you.

And of that eighty-six and sixty dollars, not all of that goes to the officer, correct?

Yes, that's the hourly rate that is paid to the officer.

And so is the company charged more than the hourly rate to the right.

Doesn't the city give some money back also?

Yes.

So would they when they receive their bill, they will say like who the officer was, how many hours the officers work, the hourly rate, that the amount that the officer will be paid, but it also um reflects a 10% admin fee mandated by mass general law.

That's the cap that we can charge as far as the admin fee per chapter.

So for every detail we put out, we get 10% revenue back, unless it's a another municipality or a state contract, you know, it's inter-government, we don't charge that.

Does it go back to the police general fund or the city's general fund?

City's general fund.

Right.

So it goes back to us being able to fund youth jobs, whatever we want to do.

It does go back.

Okay, and do you know how much of the 10%, say from last year?

Do you have a number of?

I don't have the exact number, but if I would say it's roughly about three million dollars that goes back to the general fund.

Okay, every yeah after the police.

And I can confirm those amounts.

Okay, could you um through the chair?

Um, if you could send along to us a copy at least of one of the bills, just so we can see yeah, that would be helpful.

Um I know my time is up, but so far I've gotten some good answers, but thank you.

And two minutes around, thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Murphy.

Council Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and Mr.

Chair.

Before I begin, many of my questions were going to be focused on staffing levels, and I did have a list of questions that I did want the police commissioner to answer directly.

He has been invited.

Do you have an update for us, Mr.

Chair, on why he's not here?

Council of Flint, I do not have uh update, we were communicated that uh he would not be here this morning, and um, you know, Lisa O'Brien um was sent by other department to answer our questions.

I am happy to um send questions on behalf of the committee to the commissioner.

Um I think we can ask um who we have here today.

But is is there a likelihood that if we send questions to the commissioner that he will answer them?

We do as a committee chair, we I send the questions over and we wait for the responses.

Okay, just for the record, I I am disappointed that the police commissioner is not here.

I have supported the Boston police for eight years when a lot of city counselors didn't support the police officers, but I move on.

Lisa, I have the opportunity to work with you for eight years, and you've always been very professional.

Lisa, how many SWAN officers in the Boston police department are there?

Currently we have 2,234 officers, but that includes the recruits that are in the current academy class right now.

So right now available for duty is 2,102 officers.

Okay.

On average, how many police officers either retire or resign?

We haven't seen many resignations, counselor.

For the most part, there it's uh we see the attrition through retirements.

Um, you know, about on average, the last three year average is about 107, which would include mandatory retirements.

I know that um OBM does a project uh forecast on January 1st of every year, and they're predicting for fiscal year 26 into fiscal year 27, so it'll be calendar year 26.

They're looking at approximately 120 um retirements of which uh a quarter of that is um mandatory retirement.

Okay, so about a hundred and twenty potentially re retirement, about twenty-five percent mandatory retirement, um but oh but and and that's what I that's what I believe too, meant many police officers are leaving early before their retirement maximum age.

So of so 75 percent of the of 120 uh I don't know 80 yeah, 90 police officers basically are leaving uh before the retirement age, but I think that's a significant number because they're leaving for a particular reason.

Do we do a exit interview or do we ask them why they're leaving?

So we have that data that can help us work with the current police officers to make the job more meaningful and helpful and family balanced.

Do we do we do that type of exit interview in asking them um why they're leaving before they're mature mandatory retirement age?

Um I I don't believe we do.

Um, some of them will volunteer while they're leaving, but for the most part, some of them came on very, very young.

Um, so at the and they're in under group four, which allows them to retire at age 55 and not age 65.

And also, you know, if they have 32 years or more and they're at 55, they'll go out at the maximum amount of their pension.

So part of it is that they want to you know either retire and not work again or maybe spend time with their family, or sometimes they they just feel like they finish their career as a Boston police officer.

Okay, why isn't why doesn't Boston meet the requirement?

And again, this is a question I should be asking the police commissioner.

It's somewhat unfair to ask ask you.

Um but let me let me ask it for for the record and maybe to the chair, but why isn't Boston meeting its obligation to hire to have 2,500 police officers on the force as required by law?

Um Lisa mandatory overtime or forced forced overtime, however, however we phrase it, when a police officer is requested to work.

Do they have a choice of saying no?

Not if it's mandatory.

Now what would happen if if the police officer just had something that they needed to do, personal in nature, they didn't necessarily want to get, they didn't want to talk to their supervisor about it.

They needed to do something with their family.

They're mandatory to work overtime.

They weren't planning to, they were planning to work for their eight-hour shift, and then they had a family obligation.

What is but we're, in my opinion, we're we're setting that police officer up for failure, and we're almost putting that officer choosing between supporting the police department or supporting their family.

And that's what's always been concerning to me is you know, you you're making a police officer make a difficult decision.

They need to be home with their family for a particular reason.

Maybe the child is sick, maybe the child needs to go to a school appointment, or maybe maybe the spouse needs to be somewhere in the uh in the officer needs to support the spouse.

Maybe there's a sick mother or a sick um father-in-law or something, but but some of those issues that it they're personal in nature that they just don't want to share with anybody, and I understand that, but it's mandatory that they have to do their the extra eight-hour shift, though.

It is, but I I wouldn't want to answer that question because I think that would be a district by district issue that they address, and um, I'm sure things take into factor whether you know how many times has an officer refuse mandatory overtime.

Was there any kind of consequences for him refusing?

I can't answer that because I'm not on the sworn side.

Um I know that they're trying to minimize mandatory overtime.

They're strategically looking at events, um, looking at what's intentional, and and trying to obviously in great part to curb the overtime, but I think that a lot of the mandatory overtime arises from special events in our office.

You know, they're reoccurring special events.

So, for example, full call up for the marathon, full call up for St.

Patrick's Day.

So they they are aware that these would be full call-ups, and if they hadn't requested vacation time or a personal day well in advance, they knew that they will be ordered in to work that that event.

Okay, and and and I know my time is up for this round.

I'll just say one final point.

Many officers know that halfway through the shift that they're going to be forced to work another shift.

So instead of being forced, they'll just volunteer and do the do the next shift to make it easier on everybody.

And that doesn't necessarily count as forced overtime, and the police officer is doing basically doing the city a favor, but I don't know.

I I don't like the idea of a police officer have having to choose between his family and his his or her family in the job.

I think it's I think it's an unhealthy choice that we're making police officers face every day, and I do wish the police commissioner was here to answer that question because I do think it's a fair question.

I do think police officers want to hear from the police commissioner.

I do think it's impacting morale of police officers.

I think it's hurting police officers' families, but I do think the police commissioner should be here answering answering a respectful question about quality of life, family life balance for police officers and their families.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn.

Council Fitzgerald, do you have the floor?

Thank you, Chair.

So they say I don't know if you will be the right person to answer this question, but I just have uh thinking of uh potential solutions to this.

And then I guess what I'm gonna ask if if you in your knowledge understand any roadblocks that uh in my in this proposal, okay, and just tell me like here, John, this is where you might hit some bumps.

But it I understand mostly it most of the bumps will come, you'll say it's it's not in the contract, right?

Which is fine, and I understand that, but that could be something that could be changed.

Um if we went to 10 hour shifts and did that three, four days a week for our offices, um, and you overlap the shifts, where is wherein um, you know, a lot of the time, a lot of the overtime comes from if you make an arrest at the end of your shift, you have to stick around to write the report, right?

Extended tours and all the 15 minutes and incremental and all that stuff.

Um, but if you allowed for overlapping shifts and did 10-hour shifts, I think it benefits, I think it would cut back on overtime because you would you would and not hurt service because you would have other people out there while someone might be finishing a report on the tail end of a shift and they would be covered.

And then uh ultimately I think the issue becomes you lose like 27 hours or something of pay throughout the year if you go to a 10-hour shift.

Um, but I would propose we use those 27 hours and have uh officers come back in and do book work, right?

I mean, just stay sharp, stay on the books, uh keep updated and and training and such, whether it's uh firearm training or book training.

And so you make up that other 27 hours so you could say to them, hey, you know, you're not losing any hours.

Um but I think that gives them a better family life to Council Flynn's point of, you know, this is when I the most of the cops I talk to say, John, the money's okay.

We we we're we are getting good pay, and for those that want to work more details or pick up those details or pick up more shifts, that's fine.

Some people have built that way and want to continue to do that.

Um, but for others with young kids and families and they're coaching their son's little league team and that type of stuff, the the mandatory overtime to sort of say, well now I can't.

I can't be there for my family, or I'm gonna miss the recital, or I'm gonna miss the game.

Um I think the 10 hours several times gives them more family time, doesn't hurt the coverage, and takes down overtime.

And now I know there's a lot more details in all of this, but but in that, is there anything that I'm if I'm if I were to follow this further?

What would you suggest I look into that may be sort of well, John?

If you're gonna go down that path, here's some of the things that might come up.

Um do you have any understanding of how that might and I understand the contract doesn't allow for it now, and that is fine.

That has come up several times since I've been here, and also the um I think it was 12 hour days as well has come up.

Yep.

Um, but I couldn't answer whether it would be beneficial or not unless I actually did the analysis that you know, there's the cost part of it, and is that benefit?

It's almost like a return of an investment.

Sure.

What's the margin you want to reach here?

Like what what's what's that that percentage that we want to get that it's that works for everyone?

I wouldn't want to say it's good or bad without doing my own analysis, but which I would welcome to do since I love doing stuff like that.

Well, I'm glad that you love doing stuff like that.

What would you need in order to so an analysis is never an official analysis from the police department has never been done on any of those ideas as they've been floated in the past or just now?

Not that I'm aware of.

I know that some officers have presented that before, but I never really looked at it in detail.

Yeah, um, but I'd be more than than happy to look into that, but it would obviously take some time because you'd want to make sure that everything was covered.

I know that we were looking at um potentially putting 911 operations to four and two, but there's a benefit and there's a pro it's inclined for going to a four and two similar to the police officer.

So we could definitely do that analysis back here at the police department.

Is there anything you need that you do not currently have to to do such an analysis, or is it just uh and who has to uh give that order to have the analysis run?

Is that something you could do, or do you need to be told, hey, this is what we're I I want you to do this?

Well, I mean, obviously, it would be uh the commissioner's wish that it'd want to see the calculation.

I could do the analysis just for my own uh piece of mind, but it would certainly come from the commissioner to say that I really want this done because I want consideration maybe for the next round of contracts.

I don't know.

Um I don't think believe he's ever spoken to me about that, but um I'm not sure if he's you know had has any say in it either way because I I haven't spoken to him about that.

I just know that I've spoken to other offices about either the the 10 or the 12 hour shifts.

Yep.

No, that's awesome.

Thank you.

I it's an analysis I would welcome, and if I can be helpful in any way to get that analysis done, I think that's taking steps towards a solution, and I'd have I'd be happy to advocate uh in whatever way you see fit that you think it could best happen.

Um is there any education you could give myself and and and anyone uh that would be listening in about uh events that cause overtime, the different events that the city picks up and the different type of events that the event has to pay for detail/slash overtime and and any differentiation between I know some things that raise money have to pay, others the city says you know, what we we will take that on.

Could you just explain that a little bit?

Well, I think it also comes down to public safety.

Um when there's an event, there is there's a uh special event committee in Boston police headquarters that meet with special events here at City Hall, and they determine whether or not it's a public safety issue.

Um many events are um are paid through what we call reimbursable overtime work similar to the pay details where the vent will vendor will sign an MOU.

The based on what type of event it is and how big the event is gonna, it will list how many officers will be needed, how many supervisors, um, what the hours are.

Some of them, some of them might be like, for example, the marathon was like a whole weekend of events.

Um, so similar to uh police details, the officers get paid their overtime hourly rate, not the paid detail hourly rate, which is different, and they also are charged the 10% admin fee.

And the reimbursable overtime is not reflected at all in our general fund either.

It's set up as a receivable, and obviously the receivable is reduced as the cash comes in.

So when when on the on the events that are reimbursable, that is that does not factor into what we would see as uh an overspend on overtime.

Correct.

So for example, there was an MOU in place just this past week uh for both BC and B U because of the graduation.

It is a public safety issue because of the traffic going in around those areas.

So the MOU was signed, and that basically says there will be officers there, um, they will be paid the overtime their overtime hourly rate, and then they will pay the 10% admin fee on top of that.

And I apologize, just one more question, Chair.

But uh as it any difference from road race, smaller events, road races, or even larger events like a parade, but anything in between?

What where do the what categories do those fall in?

Is that are those reimbursable?

Are those uh tab taken on by the city, or are those um paid?

But I think how big how big it is to determine whether or not they need more.

I mean, for example, the core of road race in West Roxbury, that I think they just send some officers down there during the parade route that are on shift.

I've never seen a reimbursable overtime for that because it's it's over pretty quickly.

Um, unless you're walking it.

That's true.

No, that's okay.

Or unless you're just running or run it, right?

Or if I'm running it, it goes very long.

Spectator just maybe chairing you on.

Yes, um, that that's not reimbursable overtime.

I I guess it it all depends what what they feel is a public safety, and that there's a specific need for additional offices more than the district, um, could cover.

So sometimes the shift offices can cover and decrease any overtime potential overtime.

Great, depending on size.

Um thank you very much.

I appreciate time.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Fitzgerald.

Counselor Weber, you have the floor.

Okay, thank you, Chair.

Um, so in there's a lot of anecdotal, you know, uh, sort of information about people working double shifts.

You know, we we also I've I've also heard stories of practices where uh officers will sort of switch shifts so both can get paid over time.

You know, just trying to cut through all of that and figure out what is actually happening.

So, how can we?

We asked for data, my office.

We got data in terms of like total number of hours by categories and things like that, the hours paid.

Um, but we don't know how can we get data that just shows how much each officer is actually working?

We can we can get that data for you for you of what they're actually working in terms of overtime details.

Yeah, I mean we just it would not we don't it's like assign each officer just one through you know 2100 or whatever it is, and then just the the sort of you know the out the pay the paid hours, and so we can figure out like how often people are working, how much they're being called in to work a double shift, uh, because I feel like you know we are we're all concerned about that practice, but uh we I I don't know how often that actually happens.

Uh so counselor, I know that you did have a request from us on through a 17F.

Did that not like help?

We we it we were just given to like total hours paid uh for the entire department, and uh we were unable to figure out you know how like what each what the burden on each officer uh is currently so well we can continue to work on that.

Um uh in terms of I mean we we have in our budget hearing we were talking about mass and cast, which is about 160,000 hours of overtime each year, and then at the end, I think Superintendent Brown or something said well that's now a tour of duty.

I can't remember who said it.

That was Superintendent Brown.

Okay, and I don't know what the difference is between so it was a special event, now it's a turret duty, is that any impact on the amount of overtime?

So we don't look at mass and cast as a special event, it's given a special event code, um, just so we can capture the actual cost.

Um, because you'd be digging through a lot of overtime if it wasn't coded specifically for mass mass and caste.

Um mass and cases down 23.3%.

Tour of duty is that the um the the oversight of mass and cash is gonna be for officers on their regular tour of duty, um, and then obviously, depending on what Superintendent Brown, if there is a need to enforce it with overtime, that would be his decision.

But everything is looked at and everything is looked at to see what's intentional.

Okay, just just so I understand.

So it you both it was it paid out at at an overtime.

It was it was it was I I don't believe it was all overtime.

Okay, but obviously there was overtime and a lot of overtime early on when um the mass and cast started to come to fruition, if that's the right words.

And again, like no I've no like criticism of stationing people there and and you know what the police department is doing.

I'm just in terms of like how it gets paid.

So is it less of it there'll still be the same staffing, but less of it will be paid at the overtime rate?

Correct.

Okay.

Um let's see.

So for um I guess what when when an are there instances where an officer is working overtime that don't require authorization from some like from their sergeant or captain or all overtime has to be.

Okay.

So it's like the end of the shift.

If there's a car accident and they're working that scene and they have to stay over, do they have to get permission from someone?

And who's that?

If they had to get permission in that instance, I'm not sure if that has to be pre-approved in advance, because obviously you're not gonna walk away from a car accident, but um I'm sure that their duty supervisor is made well aware that they are there at the scene, you know, taking a report, finishing, you know, whatever it needs to be done.

Um, but but all of it so it might not be pre-authorized because we don't know that car accident is gonna happen, but we're not with our expectation is the officer's not gonna walk away at at 12 o'clock when a shift is over.

He will stay until you know things are finished and complete.

Okay, so the so generally when people are working overtime, it's it's being su it's being approved by a supervising officer.

Correct.

Okay, and who who would I who's the supervising officer for that purpose, is like the sergeant, lieutenant, captain, someone else.

But the moment it's the it's it's the duty supervisor that's on that shift in the districts, it could be a sergeant or it could be administrative lieutenant okay um and uh let's see here in terms of uh um when I guess uh like what are do you have in turn uh I guess we've made progress on injury leave you know there were a lot of yes we've made and ha how have you been so successful on that so I I want to say back in 2021 we kind of uh basically revamped our occupational health unit so that there were more case management had a case management structure rather than someone just doing billing someone just doing um inquiries for what what types of injuries would be paid and what the cost would be for a particular service or surgery so it's basically divided now that I take on all offices A through F would come to me and I would be with them from start to finish from the day that they get injured to the minute that I get the report and would see them through their whole process we also beefed up the medical providers but in 2022 2021 we started making sure officers would come in bi weekly like every two weeks coming in to get evaluated here you know come up with doctors notes we want our officers back to work but I can't emphasize that we we make sure that they're healthy first but I think we're doing a more efficient way to get them back and I want to say that we're at 58 right now of officers out injured which is phenomenal okay okay well thank you very much thank you chair thank you counselor Weber we're gonna now do a second round of questions I'm gonna go back to Council Murphy we'll do um six minutes thank you um and again I'm not sure if you are the one who can answer this um is it true that there was always a staffing minimum that was used across all districts and before a shift and I'm not sure do you know which um officer would be the one in charge of is it the captain is it the lieutenant I don't even know it really would come from the captain down.

Okay.

But isn't the lieutenant the one in charge of making sure there's enough staff for each shift and there used to be a staffing minimum expected and now they've gone away from that staffing minimum and they used to um call for overtime but now pull from other districts is that also true that they're pulling for districts for offices I believe they are are doing that.

So say like issue C6 and C11 and I'm I can I don't know and that's why I filed this hearing but say you need 20 offices on each shift that may be very low and C eleven has 17 and C6 has nine like 21 like they'll just pull someone for C6 to kind of even it out is that I how do they decide because then the other district would be below their fully staffed levels.

I can't answer that counselor I think that should be tabled to Superintendent Brown who could get that answer to you rather quickly.

And if so I guess I'll just put it on the record also if a sergeant or lieutenant is not covering a certain shift in a department say again C6 C11 that they would just have the lieutenant sergeant from C6 cover both districts.

I don't know if they would cover both I know that they will get a sergeant or lieutenant to to cover the district whether it might be a temporary out of grade a TOG like a sergeant temporary to a lieutenant, but whether or not that officer is coming from another district or that officer though because I heard that one lieutenant would then be expected to cover both, say all of South Boston and Dorchester both instead of calling in overtime for each depart each district to have fully staffed.

I don't know that.

I think it would be best answered by Superintendent Brown or some some representative Bureau of Field Services.

Okay.

Thank you.

I mean, I wish I had, I mean, I have more questions, but I appreciate you.

I don't want to keep asking you questions that I'm just gonna end up, I guess, putting on the record, or we'll keep we'll reschedule this hearing for the right people, because um superintendent Brown could have also attended if the commissioner was too busy.

They didn't have to leave you here all alone, but thank you for being here.

Thank you, Councillor Murphy.

Um Councillor Flynn, you got the clerk.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and again, thank you to Lisa for being here.

I also agree.

I I thought I think it's unfair to leave you here, Lisa, alone and not supported by anybody.

Um I don't know if you're able to answer this question or not, but I was a question similar to what Councillor Murphy asked, um, but say C6, where I live in South Boston, South Boston Dorchester, is short a supervisor, a sa a sergeant or or a lieutenant, instead of hiring a supervisor on OT on overtime, that they will have one sergeant cover both patrol districts.

So serving as a patrol supervisor would cover both Dorchester and South Boston, but this is not hypothetical.

That's the that's the practice.

Is that accurate, Lisa?

I can't answer that without confirming with somebody from BFS.

I know that they're looking at ways to reduce overtime.

I don't know if that's one of them.

Um they're trying to be very intentional with how they disperse overtime, but I don't know if that's one of the implementations recently made.

But but them Boston police reducing overtime has a negative impact on other aspects of how you assign supervisors in operations and manning levels.

Is that is that accurate?

I'm not seeing that now, counselor.

I mean, we have significantly reduced the weekly average of overtimes these past six weeks, but I I have not heard anything negative on the reduction.

I think you know, we're our main goal is to provide public safety, and I don't think that has taken any any toll since this reduction in in trying to reduce our overtime.

But you would have you would still have the one supervisor cut covering that I don't know.

I would have to get that from BFS.

I don't I don't know that answer right now.

All right, that's what my questions, Mr.

Chair, were on based on on staffing levels and what impact it has on us as a city council and the impact it potentially could have on the budget and how we're able to move forward on the budget, but if if I don't necessarily have the answers to the question, um well, does the does the department believe current staffing shortages are impacting response time or neighborhood patrol coverage?

I don't believe that's true.

Um, what safeguards are in place to ensure officers working excessive overtime, including 17-hour work shift, are still able to safely and effectively perform their duties.

Well, there's the the 90-hour rule per week per officer, so there is a calculation done every every week by the payroll department to determine how many officers worked over the 90 hours.

You know, there's there's also since the new collective bargaining agreement, they also are now afforded if if it's able to do without um if they'd be able to do it while sustaining operations.

They're allowed to take a half hour break to the gyms.

The gyms also have been made um free to the officers, all the gyms that that normally had a membership fee, monthly membership fee.

They take do take officer wellness serious.

But I know that's that 90 hour rule that officers cannot exceed the 90 hour rule as far as their weekly amount of work.

But but can a police officer still work 17-hour week, 17-hour day?

I don't know how they would work a seventeen-hour day unless they did overtime on that because it's six it's eight-hour shifts, um, unless they picked up some overtime and it was allowed.

When the when police commissioner clock started the first meeting I had, and there was one officer I believe that worked a 19-hour shift, and I took I instructed the police commissioner.

I said this is very unhealthy for the police officer, his or her family, but also the residents of Boston.

He he promised me that that would never happen again.

But do we know if any police officers have recently worked a 17 hour shift?

Not that I'm aware of, but I could get that information for you.

Yeah, that would be helpful.

Um we would you would never not mean you, but the Boston Police Department would never instruct someone to work beyond 16 hours.

I don't believe so, but I would rather confirm that before I say yes or no on that.

Okay.

Um Lisa, were you able to answer questions about the Boston Police Crime Lab?

On a very higher level, but not on a specific level.

Is the police is the crime lab hiring a executive director?

Yes, they are they have started to search for the executive director.

If I'm not mistaken, they're moving forward with posting the position.

Okay, do they still have a kind of a commission of of people that are overseeing it now?

Well, we did have one director, Rachel Camper, who has retired.

Um, but there are there's also another gentleman who's who's not on the director level, but he has assisted greatly um for some time at the crime lab where he can.

And we also have um the sergeant as well, um, Sergeant Jefferson oversees a good good portion of the crime lab.

Is the person that was on an extended leave of absent is that person did did that person apply for the uh position?

I don't believe the position has been posted yet.

We're we're we're going through the motions of getting it posted.

I think they wanted to look at the job description to make sure that it was accurate with the current role.

Um, but as I understand that they were gonna move forward with posting it, I don't believe it has been posted yet, so I can't answer that question.

Is that person back on the job?

Yes.

After after about two years' leave of absence.

Well, we ever able to find out why that person was placed on leave.

Um, no, I was not privy to that information at that time because I wasn't in the role that I'm currently at when he was put out on admin leave.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chunk.

Thank you, Council Flynn.

Council Fitzgerald.

Yeah, just one quick question, Lisa.

Thank you, and then I won't have any further questions.

Um you said the uh weekly we get the uh which officers work over 90 hours, right?

Uh do we know on average how many officers that could be?

No, but I don't have it off the top of my head, but I could certainly get that for you.

Through the chair, if that would be some good questions, so we know how many people are working that absolute maximum.

Um, because that's the 90 hours is quite a lot of time and and and uh and quite a lot of overtime.

So if we knew how many would do in it and why, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Uh that is all.

Thank you very much.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Fitzgerald.

I've been um informed by our um central staff that we don't have anyone uh for public testimony.

Um so with that, I do want to thank um Lisa.

Thank you for so much for being here answering our questions.

Um I want to thank the lead sponsors, um, Councilman Murphy, counselor um, Councillor Umlyn and Councillor Fitzgerald, um, for bringing this um these hearing orders.

We'll work with the um lead sponsors um on any follow-ups, and I will also submit um the questions that my colleagues have submitted through um through the committee.

Um with that again, thank you, Lisa.

Thank you to my colleagues, thank you to the public um for being here.

Um and this hearing on docket numbers zero five nine one and zero six nine six is adjourned.

Thank you.