Minneapolis police overtime expected to hit $26 million this year

The Minneapolis Police Department is on track to rack up $26 million in overtime this year — about $10 million over budget — as the number of extra hours officers work continues since a flood of retirements and resignations after George Floyd’s 2020 police killing and the unrest that followed it.

Police Chief Brian O’Hara provided the overtime figure to City Council members during a budget presentation Thursday in which he added that the department has about 210 vacancies.

“We’re using overtime every day to do the most basic functions of a police department,” he said. “It is critically low staffing right now.”

Last year, MPD paid nearly $23 million in overtime — about half of that “critical staffing overtime,” in which officers are paid double their hourly wage.

Overtime is being driven by a persistent shortage in the ranks. The department had 578 sworn officers as of Thursday, down from nearly 900 in 2019, a 36% decrease that has left it with one of the nation’s lowest ratios of officers to residents.

MPD was averaging about $7 million in overtime before 2020, when it shot up to $11 million and has increased every year since.

Mayor Jacob Frey has proposed a $230 million budget for the MPD next year, a 6% increase from 2024, or $13.7 million. Of that, $13 million is budgeted for “constitutional policing” to comply with a state human rights settlement. State and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.

Most of that goes to personnel, which comprises 77% of the budget, according to MPD Finance Director Vicki Troswick. The mayor proposes 966 full-time total MPD employees next year, compared with 935 this year. Of those, 731 sworn officers are budgeted for 2025. The city charter requires the city to employ 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, or 731 officers, although the city has struggled to reach that number amid a nationwide law enforcement staffing shortage.

O’Hara said the department has seen a significant increase in applications, and a “dramatic” increase in applications from people of color. The city has processed 3,562 applications so far this year, compared to 2,924 last year, he said.

O’Hara said the department has hired 60 sworn officers so far this year, but lost 30.

“We will likely hire more people this year than in the last 10 years for sworn positions,” he said.

Aside from “lateral hires” (those who transferred from other departments) who can start quickly, it takes time to get new officers on the streets, he said.

“We need to hire many more people just to keep pace with normal attrition,” he said. “It is a complicated process in Minnesota to become a police officer.”

Currently, 131 employees are eligible to retire (aged 50 and up) and O’Hara expects 40 retirements this year and next.

“It remains a significant concern,” he said.

He said his biggest concern is a backlog of domestic violence cases, which require a lot of casework, especially when a suspect is gone by the time police arrive. That’s just part of an overall reduction in officers available, as some entire units were eliminated just to send more officers to 911 calls, O’Hara said.

Investigations staffing has been cut in half compared to pre-pandemic levels, even though caseloads are higher, he said.

“It’s a matter of triage,” O’Hara said.

Council Member Emily Koski questioned why only 60 people were hired out of such a large pool of applicants. O’Hara said he’s looking into that and said he thinks the department needs to do a better job of helping people get across the finish line.

“I would’ve expected a greater number,” he said. “To me this is one of the most serious issues we have.”

Koski said a public works garbage hauler told her he had to go through multiple steps to get a job.

“There are people who really truly want to work for the city of Minneapolis,” she said.

In 2022, the city invested $7 million in federal stimulus funds for recruitment, retention and hiring support. And earlier this year, the council approved historic raises of nearly 22% for police officers. But departments nationwide are offering a variety of incentives to lure police, and when they succeed, it takes time to get new members of the force on board.

O’Hara said the department is getting an impressive mix of young people coming into the department.

“I feel much better than I did when I got here about the state of the police department,” he said. “The police department is getting a lot more diverse than it ever had been before. I do feel that we’re on the right path to correcting those things.”

The department has also received criticism for that: After the first Somali woman and the first noncitizen permanent resident (a Mexican woman who has lived here since age 4) were sworn in as police officers, MPD got hateful calls from all over the country, he said, even though the officers are “genuine, sincere, good” people.