This meeting of the Cleveland City Council Public Safety Committee focused on police overtime expenditures and two proposed ordinances for digital forensic equipment and a command bus retrofit. Council members expressed concern over record overtime costs, while the chief and director defended staffing needs and voluntary overtime practices.
Order. Okay, thank you. Again, will the public safety committee please come to order? Uh Madam Clerk called a roll. Present. Thank you. Since we do not have a quorum at this time, some of our colleagues are having issue with water on their way down the city hall. So we're going to deal with the overtime issue first. It's a difficult morning of trying to drive on many of our streets. Um does everybody have it? Okay, good. Thank you. And so um, I'm not gonna indicate the officer's name. Uh, but when I look at the top 50, um, I'm looking at an officer that um overtime was 176,000 on top of their base pay. Another one 170,000 on top of base bay. Another one 157,000 on top of base pay, 156,000 on top of base base. So these folks are all making well over 200,000 in compensation. And I'm trying to understand, and I appreciate because we had asked for uh the units that they are assigned to. So um, and I'm assuming you have the same print out. The chair is correct. We all have it. So I'm gonna we're gonna ask some questions on some of these units just for clarification. But I want to but I want to say this as well. We were told that by going to the body was told by going to the 12 hour uh shifts that overtime would be reduced. And um it's just the opposite. Overtime has not been reduced. Now I want to say this to the viewing public. Umtime is a is um the reality within the division of police. Within police fire EMS, you're always gonna have overtime. We know that because when if if officers are on a scene of um of a crime or of a horrific incident, they're not gonna leave. Uh that's their job, they're gonna be there until relieved. Uh same with a firemen, firefighters, they're not gonna leave a working fire. That's just the reality of life, and so there'll be overtime. EMS is not gonna walk away from someone who's injured. Um nature of their job is a safe life. So we know within the Department of Public Safety, there's always going to be overtime. It's that's just the nature of the business, and there's no way to get around it. Um so that being said, when I look at the uh the dollar amount of overtime, um it concerns me greatly because every dollar we spend here, especially general fund dollars, um, it takes away from some other um section within the city of Cleveland, some other delivery of goods and services programs, etc. So, director, would you care to comment? And I would just as you have the list, and again, I'm not gonna ask you to mention any names, we're not gonna talk about any individual names. Um, but if you can start at the top of the list which you have and work down so you can so especially uh the viewing public and the and my colleagues who might not know what some of these units are, would have a better idea as to where these officers are assigned. So let's start at the very top and work down. So we have the airport, um, and we know that that we have officers assigned to the airport by FAA um requirements. So explain what DSU is. That's the next line. That's the uh downtown services unit. Okay, downtown service unit. Then lot two would be what? Just a lot uh impound lot. Vehicles are impound lot too.