$832 million police union contract<\/a> helped with raises, which also means that overtime rates go up by the hour.<\/p>\n\u201cOur overtime spending is down 22% compared to last year, but it’s down 27% by hours worked,\u201d Hardin said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the financial amount that\u2019s important, but it\u2019s the number of hours that accounts for that financial amount as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breaking it down<\/p>\n
Hardin said the department will make operational changes in patrol. Patrol officers at seven stations will now work 10 hours for four days instead of eight hours for five days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe three days off are showing to have tremendous benefits for our officers, for our staff and our budget,\u201d Hardin said.<\/p>\n
They will also overlap shifts longer so that more officers are available during peak hours, which can help decrease overtime. Instead of one-hour shift changes, Hardin said, shift changes overlap by two or three hours now.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get fewer late calls because you already have another shift that\u2019s been on for an hour or two,\u201d Hardin said. \u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon for you in the last hour of your shift to get one or two calls. If it\u2019s a complicated call, it\u2019s going to take you well over your shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hardin said a person who started their shift more recently would likely take that call instead.<\/p>\n
Another detail<\/p>\n
Hardin added that they cannot predict what overtime would be for the upcoming year, but one way they will also save is by not calling people in.<\/p>\n
Hardin explained that if an officer calls off or calls in sick, no one replaces them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe staffing is done in a manner that assumes that the shift is filled,\u201d he said. \u201cAt HPD, if you work in the central division, and you call in sick, we do not call in someone else. Those other officers pick up the slack.\u201d<\/p>\n
One more thing<\/p>\n
City Council is expected to vote on the proposed city budget in June. FY 2026-27 begins July 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Police Department will decrease its budget allocated to overtime by 22%. What this means During a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,65718,58,57,2543,5171,109572,1225],"class_list":["post-301799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-budget","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-police-department","tag-hpd","tag-police-budget","tag-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}