(The Center Square) – Overtime paid by the City of San Diego increased 65% between 2019 and 2024, city records show, while the number of city employees earning $100,000 or more in just overtime nearly doubled, an investigation by The Center Square found.
The city faces a $18.1 million shortfall for the current fiscal year. City of San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria is ordering a halt to non-essential overtime, but the city still projects a deficit of at least $89 million for the next year.
Gloria’s order targeted “overtime that does not directly impact core City services or create public safety or health issues.”
It’s unclear how much of an impact the order will have given first responders’ prominence in overtime reports.
First responders were 208 out of 211 city employees who earned more than $100,000 in overtime in 2024. Two of the other three work for the city’s water system. A third is a street lighting technician. The city’s top five overtime earners in 2024 each earned more than $250,000 in overtime alone last year.
California State Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, who previously served on San Diego City Council, said officials justify the use of overtime by citing high pension costs from having more first responders. The overtime comes at the expense of public safety, taxpayers and the first responders themselves, he said.
“Public safety is compromised while taxpayer money is wasted. If they actually did proper staffing and cracked down on overtime abuse, you’d have fresher, more well rested police and fire, and we’d have more police and fire personnel, not fewer,” said DeMaio in an interview with The Center Square.
“The justification for why they want overtime [over hiring more personnel]is, well, the pension benefits are lavish and they’re expensive, we save money by giving people a quarter million dollars in overtime,” DeMaio said. “They’re fleecing us in both pockets: they get massive golden parachute pensions that are astronomically expensive, and then they use that to justify the massive payouts of overtime — it’s an absolute scam, and the politicians allow it.”
According to City Councilmember Vivian Moreno, who serves as vice chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, Gloria has refused to enact millions of dollars of job cuts passed by city council as part of this year’s budget. The mayor’s office says the cuts aren’t being enacted to ensure compliance or meet “critical priorities,” she said.
“These collectively carry a cost of over $1.5 million and I am confused about why these positions continue to be funded because they were reduced in the fiscal year ‘26 budget,” said Moreno in the committee’s latest December 10 hearing.
“The administration has identified them as critical to city operations in order to implement compliance strategies or in order for us to ensure there is a proper management structure to move forward with the city’s critical priorities,” responded Gloria’s Director of Policy Matt Yagyagan at the meeting.
Deputy City Attorney Brett Parlato noted that, should the city council not find the mayor’s enactment of its budget to be satisfactory, they can summon the mayor for answers. If those answers prove unsatisfactory, the mayor can be voted to be removed for dereliction of duty.
Gloria’s order also requires official requests to fill vacant positions and suspends discretionary spending. It orders another zero-based review of external contracts, though with a similar such review ordered last year as well, the review’s results may be limited.
Gloria’s office did not respond to repeated phone and email media inquiries from The Center Square. Moreno’s office initially stated it was working on a response, but later declined to do so. None of the below city staff or their respective media contacts returned requests for interviews and comment.
Here are the city employees who received the most overtime in the 2024 calendar year:
1. Fire Captain Jason Hewitt, $274,721
Hewitt also earned $53,131 in regular pay, $7,430 in lump sum pay, and $30,000 in “other” pay, for a grand total of $365,282.
2. Fire Engineer Eric Dunnick, $260,139
Dunnick’s regular pay was $45,158. He also received $23,824 in lump sum pay, and $89,311 in “other” pay, adding up to $418,431.
3. Fire Captain Jeffrey Cheek, $254,070
Cheek was paid $54,893 in regular pay, and $19,888 in “other pay,” or $328,851 in all.
4. Police Sergeant Gary Mondesir, $252,343
Mondesir earned $136,783 in regular pay, $41,524 in lump sum pay, and $20,417 in “other pay” — $451,065 overall.
5. Police Officer Jason Costanza, $251,665
Costanza’s regular pay of $112,615, lump sum pay of $20,411, $24,969 in “other pay,” and overtime provided for total compensation of $409,660 in 2024.
