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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cOne-hundred twenty-four sworn staff worked over 1,000 hours of overtime in fiscal year 2024-25, which raises concerns about sustainability and officer wellness,\u201d City Auditor Joe Rois said at a recent committee meeting reviewing the report.<\/p>\n
All that overtime has contributed to SJPD\u2019s ballooning annual budget, which reached $561 million in 2025. As of that year, 13% of the budget went to overtime expenses, up from 10% in 2020 when the overall police budget was $459 million.<\/p>\n
These officer overtime hours were typically spent on administrative duties like filling out reports, Rois said. Often, officers carried out those hours without filling out proper documentation or gaining supervisor approval.<\/p>\n
The auditor\u2019s report also found the average response time to priority 1 calls remains at slightly more than eight minutes. SJPD only met the six-minute target 45% of the time. That\u2019s worse than the findings of a prior audit examining response times in 2019 and 2020, which found a seven-minute response time.<\/p>\n
Raj Jayadev, founder of police watchdog group Silicon Valley De-Bug, called the ballooning overtime spending \u201cegregious.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s alarming to hear of the tremendous amount of public dollars going to overtime, particularly in a period where city services are all getting slashed and cut,\u201d Jayadev told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight, referring to the city\u2019s efforts to address a projected $56 million budget shortfall. \u201cWe give police a blank check to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want to do it and we\u2019ll let the rest of public services suffer in the wake of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s meeting also gave some residents an opportunity to vent their frustrations about SJPD\u2019s responsiveness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see you talking about six- or eight-minute response times. More like 80-minute response times, if they respond at all,\u201d one resident, who did not give his name, said during public comment. \u201cWhen they show up it\u2019s with anger \u2014 or nonchalance, which is even worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, officials with the San Jose Police Officers\u2019 Association have criticized the report, arguing it omits key context. They say San Jose police have come under increasing pressure from multiple fronts, including a mental health and drug crisis that has made police work more complex. In addition, they also point to the pension reform fight from a decade ago as one reason fewer officers are willing to join the city\u2019s police ranks.<\/p>\n
Association President Steve Slack also pushed back on concerns about the increasing overtime spending, arguing the money is going to address real public safety problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone saying too much is being spent needs to tell the public what police services they want cut \u2014 rape, robbery or assault investigations, tracking sex registrants, prevention programs?\u201d Slack told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cBeing short staffed means overtime is a necessity to try and keep San Jose residents safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
During Tuesday\u2019s meeting, Joseph pointed to other factors pushing up police overtime, such as increased reporting requirements for officers, as well as a shift toward police tactics that emphasize deescalation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s a win for everybody, but it is, in fact, time consuming,\u201d Joseph said.<\/p>\n
The report lays out several recommendations for improvements, most of which have won broad support from San Jose\u2019s elected leaders and the police department\u2019s top brass. Those include doubling down on reporting requirements to better track a variety of police initiatives, such as the department\u2019s efforts to boost officer recruitment and retention. They also include stricter measures to ensure compliance with the city\u2019s overtime request rules.<\/p>\n
But the city auditor acknowledged these changes will only get San Jose so far, if it cannot grow its officer ranks.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we really address some of the retention issues and the hiring issues, we\u2019re going to continue to have overtime,\u201d Rois said at the meeting.<\/p>\n
As of the start of 2025, the city had 998 active sworn officers, excluding new recruits. That\u2019s the lowest figure since 2018 and also far lower than the nearly 1,400 officers on the active duty roster in 2008, the highest staffing total for the department in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n
While the number of budgeted officer positions has increased in recent years, rising to 1,172 as of 2025, increasing turnover has meant that a large portion of those positions have gone unfilled, the report found.<\/p>\n
This shortfall has left San Jose with a lower officer-per-capita ratio than other large California cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time San Jose has attempted to tackle the twin challenges of lengthy response times and excessive overtime spending.<\/p>\n
The prior audit, carried out in 2021, came with 10 recommendations including adding more sworn officers, tracking calls that could be diverted to non-sworn staff and improving management of officer overtime. Of those, the city has met all but one, the most recent report found. That final recommendation calls for the city to identify cost savings by analyzing officer shift schedules as part of a larger effort to redraw the city\u2019s police patrol districts by the end of this year.<\/p>\n
District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz expressed concern over the city\u2019s police overtime spending, but he said given widespread demands from residents for improved public safety, the extra hours spent on policing should be considered \u201cessential work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur officers aren\u2019t being predatory with these hours. They\u2019re not wasting the public\u2019s purse,\u201d Ortiz said at the meeting. \u201cThese are services and resources that our constituents require in order to live in a safe neighborhood, and honestly we need more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contact Keith Menconi at\u00a0keith@sanjosespotlight.com\u00a0or @KeithMenconi on X.<\/p>\n