(The Center Square) – Seattle City Council members showed their frustration with a proposed $10 million increase to the Seattle Police Department’s overtime budget even as the city works to reach its officer hiring goals.
The department’s overall overtime budget for 2024 increased from $37 million in 2023 to $54 million. That accounts for the wage increase and an additional $4 million in salary savings.
Another $12.8 million was added as part of Harrell’s 2024 supplemental budget. If authorized by the Seattle City Council, this would bring the Seattle Police Department’s 2024 overtime budget to $54.2 million.
Meanwhile, SPD is on track to use between 455,000 and 475,000 overtime hours in 2024, which represents a 5% to 10% decrease from 2023.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s 2025-2026 Proposed Budget would add $10 million to continue funding overtime in 2025 at a level that approximates the projected spending in 2024.
This $10 million is not ongoing into 2026, which means SPD will have to “severely curtail” its overtime spending, or the county executive and council would need to add more funding in 2026, according to a central staff memo.
Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales expressed her frustrations with the city’s ongoing spending on overtime exceeding budgeted amounts.
“Every year, [SPD] spends more than they get and then they ask for more next year; it seems that there is a management problem here,” Morales said at Monday’s budget committee meeting. “The department needs to better manage its overtime because we are in a deficit situation, and we can’t keep just adding tens of millions of dollars every year.”
Seattle Supervising Analyst Greg Doss countered that the need for special event staffing and patrol augmentation has been growing at a rate that has been difficult for the city to predict, causing overtime spending to increase.
Morales proposed that a better return on investment would be made if overtime funding shifted toward building more tiny-house villages and restoring youth programming, among other pitched ideas.
Dan Eder, interim director of the City Budget Office, disagreed with Morales, saying that he does not believe there is a scenario where the overtime funding will go unused.
“[The funds] will either be used for regular staffing in the police department for sworn officers, or it will be used because we’re not able to attract more sworn officers for overtime to backfill the low-level of funded officers who are actually employed by the city,” Eder countered.
Seattle City Council Chair Sara Nelson said the overtime budget increase shows that the city doesn’t believe that it can reach its hiring goal for SPD.
The city’s goal is a net gain of 500 officers over five years since announcing the Seattle Police Recruitment and Retention Plan in 2022.
SPD reached a high of 446 applicants last July, the most since 2013. However, the department still has a net deficit of officers.
“I don’t like [that] I am sensing some complacency of an inability to meet our goals,” Nelson said.
Doss countered that it is highly likely SPD will overspend its overtime allocation in 2025 and 2026.
