The departments initially developed more in-depth dashboards in response to the council directive, but their chiefs announced a shift to “streamlined and simplified” versions in a July 2 memo. Monthly police, fire and EMS data is now available online.
By the numbers
Spending activity reported through this spring shows APD and Austin Fire are heading well beyond their overtime budgets this year, while the EMS department remains several million dollars below its limit. As of the spring, the police department had nearly reached its fiscal year overtime allocation, and the fire department had already used over a third more than it has available.
An average of $2.2 million is budgeted for APD overtime every month, a threshold that’s been consistently exceeded since the start of the fiscal year. The police department’s overtime peaked at $5.2 million in March during the spring festival season, and from October through May, it reported almost 64,000 overtime hours used at a total cost of nearly $26 million.
Austin Fire surpassed its overtime budget for this year by millions of dollars after spending double or more its allocation almost every month. The department’s $12 million in overtime spending through April was 230% of its year-to-date budget at that point, and well above its $8.95 million budget for the full fiscal year.
On the other hand, EMS remains well below its limits despite using almost 203,000 hours of overtime as of the spring. The department passed its average monthly budget once, and spent $11.53 million of its nearly $15 million year-to-date budget through May—representing just 81% of its total allocation to that point.
Alter acknowledged the hard work of all sworn public safety officers and noted that Austin Fire is contending with new staffing requirements and less flexibility under firefighters’ latest labor agreement. Still, he said reported results show some departments haven’t scaled back daily operations to meet this year’s financial constraints.