City paid $1.5M in overtime to police ordered to work extra during early June protests
The Wichita Police Department spent more than $1.5 million paying overtime to officers and other employees under a temporary staffing directive aimed at monitoring early June protest activity that authorities feared might lead to unrest in the city.
At the same time violence prompted Wichita police to break up gatherings at 21st and Arkansas on two successive nights, the department implemented an “Emergency Mobilization Plan” its says was meant to ensure officer and community safety if demonstrations spurred by the death of George Floyd in Minnesota escalated locally.
Fortunately, the city saw no large-scale protest-related violence outside of June 2 and 3, when cops in riot gear cleared angry and aggressive crowds that had resorted to vandalism, looting and gunfire.
But the directive contributed to Wichita police employees racking up more than 30,000 in paid overtime hours and more than 5,500 hours of compensatory time as the plan ran its course from June 2 to 14, according to an Eagle analysis of Wichita police salary data.
In a prepared statement provided to The Eagle following a request for June’s protest-related overtime figures, police spokesman Officer Charley Davidson said the extra staffing helped keep demonstrations peaceful.
“The goal of the plan was to ensure WPD was ready to respond to any situation and keep officers, the community and property safe. Through these proactive measures and by diligently working to de-escalate potentially violent demonstrations, Wichita did not experience mass arrests of protestors or extensive property damage, which happened in many other American cities,” he wrote.
“WPD continues to work every day to ensure that appropriate, well-trained staffing exists to keep every Wichitan and their businesses and property safe.”
The Eagle began asking for overtime data in mid-June following a tip that police employees were under orders to work extra hours with no days off. Repeated requests for specific details about the Emergency Mobilization Plan, including length of shifts and whether days off were allowed, went unanswered until this week when Davidson declined to share the information, saying it was confidential.
But Police Chief Gordon Ramsay told Wichita City Council members and staff in a June 3 email obtained by The Eagle that the department “went into a tactical alert and have put all officers on 12 hour shifts with no days off for the next 13 days” to “ensure we have enough staff to address civil disturbances as they arise and address other issues occurring in the City.”
Overall, 618 employees received a total of $1,514,210.24 in overtime pay for the period, at an average hourly rate of $50.10, according to an analysis of the salary data. Employees were paid for at least 30,225.5 hours of overtime worked and banked at least 5,501.25 hours in comp time, the data shows.
Broken down, workers most often put in between 50 and 70 hours of overtime those 13 days. But several logged upwards of 80 and 90 hours, the data shows. The two employees who worked the most paid overtime hours — a non-commissioned range assistant and a current police captain — were paid for 115.5 and 123 hours, respectively, at a cost of $5,577.50 and $8,793.27. The captain held the rank of lieutenant at the time the overtime was earned, but was promoted at some point in late June, Davidson said.
That same police captain and a lieutenant who worked 96.75 overtime hours at a cost of $6,638.99 earned the most overtime pay for the time period.
The average number of overtime hours worked across all employees was just shy of 49 hours.
On average, workers each earned $2,450.18 in overtime pay for the 13 days the plan was active.
Patrol officers earned the most overtime pay overall — 59.2% of the total at an overall cost of $896,230.97 — and worked the most paid hours, 65.9% of the total, or 19,915 hours.
Sergeants earned the next most with 15.7% of the dollars paid ($237,723.52), while detectives earned 14.6% ($221,673.70). They worked 12.5% and 12.2% of the paid hours, respectively.
Upper ranks, a current captain and lieutenants, earned just under 8% of the overtime pay but worked 5.4% of the overall paid hours.
Civilian workers, support officers and others including non-commissioned positions accounted for the rest.
By contrast, the city of Tulsa spent $450,000 paying its police officers overtime — about a third of Wichita’s costs — and let them bank less than half of the comp time hours for their work covering police brutality protests and President Donald Trump’s June 20 campaign rally, according to a July 23 report from the Tulsa World, the city’s daily newspaper. The time period analyzed by the Tulsa newspaper was May 25 to June 30, about more than twice as long as the Wichita Police Department’s Emergency Mobilization Plan was active. The average overtime pay rate in Tulsa, $51 per hour, is similar to Wichita’s.
The city told The Eagle it has sought Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES, funding to cover the overtime costs. The CARES Act was passed into law in response to economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are grateful for the more than $4 million dollars in CARES Act funds that Sedgwick County has already appropriated to the City of Wichita for reimbursement of COVID-19 related expenses. This funding, along with additional anticipated assistance from the County from CARES Act funding will reimburse police and fire pay incurred by the City as well as many other pandemic related expenses including PPE,” city spokesman Jim Jonas said by email.
Before the emergency staffing plan took effect, the police chief alerted city council members that efforts to keep the peace would result in higher overtime costs.
He apologized “in advance” for the spending in a May 31 email obtained by The Eagle, writing:
“While I realize ... our budget situation is (in) tough shape, there was significant staff time that went into the events to ensure safety for our community. We were committed to being prepared to prevent lawlessness (that) occurred in other communities...So I am apologizing in advance for our OT costs.”
Contributing: Chance Swaim of The Eagle
This story was originally published September 27, 2020 at 5:09 AM.
CORRECTION: A police captain mentioned in this story held the rank of lieutenant at the time his overtime was earned. He was promoted later in June, the police department said.
