San Francisco cop reveals the staggering amount he earned in overtime pay in a year as police departments battle chronic staffing shortages

A San Francisco police officer has been paid four times his salary for working overtime, as the department struggles with staff shortages.

Sergeant Dennis Lai earned more than $450,000 in overtime last year, increasing his base salary by $180,000, according to data analyzed by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Data from the San Francisco Controller’s Office shows that overtime paid to police officers has skyrocketed as the department struggles with staffing shortages.

The number of police officers earning more than $100,000 in overtime more than tripled from 131 in the July 2021-June 2022 fiscal year to 493 in the July 2023-June 2024 fiscal year.

“If you don’t want to see drastic cuts to the police, the city either has to fix the staffing problem or overwork the police department,” said Tracy McCray, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association.

The maximum number of overtime hours for the police has been set at 2,000 due to an exception for a ‘critical staff shortage’

“Most of our officers would rather take their days off and their scheduled vacations to spend time with their families and loved ones, rather than work countless hours of overtime.”

While there is a city law that limits the total number of overtime hours a full-time city employee can work to 520 hours, the police department’s maximum overtime is 2,000 because of a “critical staffing shortage” exception.

According to the Chronicle’s analysis, Lai worked nearly 3,500 hours of overtime. If those shifts were evenly distributed across five weekdays each year, that would amount to a 21-hour workday.

Data from the controller’s office showed that 64 officers worked more than the 2,000-hour limit and that more than 85 percent of officers exceeded the 520-hour limit set for other city employees.

Evan Sernoffsky, a police spokesman, said the overtime increase is an “emergency measure” for police.

“We realize that overtime is unsustainable, but San Francisco still needs police for public safety,” Sernoffsky said.

“We are accelerating our recruitment and backgrounding process to rebuild our ranks as quickly as possible.”

He said the police department has 415 fewer sworn officers than in 2020, but is hiring more recruits.

San Francisco police tried to recruit officers from Texas because there was an officer shortage.

Data from the San Francisco Controller’s Office shows overtime paid to police officers has skyrocketed as the department struggles to find staff.

Mayor London Breed (pictured) in October directed city departments, including the police and public health, to propose $206 million in cuts

During the month, they visited four college campuses in Texas as part of a new recruitment drive.

The recruitment drive comes after the police department suffered funding cuts that left it paying huge amounts of overtime while the city grapples with a crisis of homelessness and open drug use.

After massive calls for reforms following the killing of George Floyd, the California city’s department saw its funding cut.

Mayor London Breed was one of the first to publicly speak out in favor of defunding police.

In October, Breed ordered city departments, including the police and public health, to propose $206 million in cuts in a desperate attempt to break the stricken city’s downward spiral that has led to economic collapse.