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One Oakland police officer made $490k in overtime
- ratelimitsteve 2mo agomaybe he just worked 40 hour days....
- ctkhn 2mo agoThis is ridiculous. These guys need a body cam and GPS on them even for desk work.
- monkpit 2mo agoWould you put up with that at your own job? They’d just all quit and the problem would be worse than before.
- AngryData 2mo agoIf they all quit everybody else would be better off. But you are delusional if you think anybody as dumb as a US cop is giving up $100/hr for sitting at a desk pretending to do paperwork just because someone wants to take video of it and never review it.
- monkpit 2mo ago> If they all quit everybody else would be better off. Look, I get where you’re going, but if you think about what would _actually_ happen, it would definitely be much worse if they suddenly had to rehire the majority of the force.
- AngryData 2mo agoI fail to see how you can get much worse than the systemic corruption and internal police gangs we already have while we pay them more than a top neurosurgeon. Incompetent cops is better than competent extortion.
- gizajob 2mo agoFirst there was the 10x engineer, now there’s the 10x cop.
- seki285 2mo agoLOL
- tartoran 2mo agoThat is Robocop minus the maintenance costs.
- stronglikedan 2mo ago> minus the maintenance costs. Given the context (government), the taxpayers are probably footing the bill for expensive therapy sessions that go unattended.
- thundercleeze 2mo agoIt's not fraud if it's the point. Oakland's government isn't poorly run from the perspective of the criminals, in and out of government, profiting off of the dysfunction.
- axus 2mo agoIf he worked those hours, it seems fair. If he wasn't working, it's fraud. Comparable to CEO pay at most companies, excluding the huge ones?
- datakan 2mo agoThe department is understaffed by hundreds of officers forcing them to work double shifts in a lot of cases at time-and-a-half pay. This is a very dangerous situation for the city to be in as that drives more officers to quit and with the financial impact already sustained will force future cuts creating a downward spiral that will be felt in the crime stats.
- triceratops 2mo ago"From 2011 to 2024, staffing increased by nearly 9%. Over the same period, overtime went up by almost 200%." EDIT: Between 2010 and 2020 Oakland's population increased 12% and total homicides, not per capita, remained flat. The Covid years (2021-23) saw a big increase in homicides (and presumably other crime) which may account for some of the increase. However by 2024, homicides returned to pre-Covid levels.
- ericmay 2mo agoHow much did crime go up? How much did the population increase? What other factors were there? Those would be helpful data points too.
- MaxGabriel 2mo agoLooks like population is up roughly 10% in that time period https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/oakland-ca-population-by-year/ https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/oakland-ca-population-by-...
- ericmay 2mo agoWhat about crime?
- triceratops 2mo agoSummary: population up by the same amount as staffing, crime flat or lower (if you're measuring per-capita). Population increased 12% between 2010 and 2020. Total homicides, not per 100k, were roughly the same - 95 vs 110. There was a marked increase in homicides during the Covid years but it dropped back down in 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California#Demographi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California#Crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California#Crime
- jjtheblunt 2mo agothis police officer made most the $490k in overtime "reviewing traffic reports". sounds like $50 of work for Gemini could replace $490,000 of that officer's overtime.
- TheRealPomax 2mo agoDon't dare them to replace cops with AI. That's what they want you to demand, so they can replace cops with AI.
- jjtheblunt 2mo agothat's desk job work, not policing, it seems, from the article.
- TheRealPomax 2mo agoA computer cannot be held accountable, and so a computer should never be allowed to replace decision making.
- apopapo 2mo agoA computer is paid for and/or run by at least one human being.
- TheRealPomax 2mo agoThis is so factually incorrect I don't even know where to begin. Have you even read about modern LLM usage?
- jst1fthsdys 2mo agoHow many cops or feds do you see being held accountable anymore?
- TheRealPomax 2mo ago
- petcat 2mo ago> A recent report by several civilian city unions found that over the past 15 years, even when department staffing increased, overtime continued to go up. From 2011 to 2024, staffing increased by nearly 9%. Over the same period, overtime went up by almost 200%. Some quick googling seems to indicate that Oakland's population also increased nearly 15% in the same time frame. And then, of course, COVID wreaked havoc on everyone in the early 2020s. Crime rates went up, but police staffing remained the same, so more opportunities for overtime? edit: actually, it looks like Oakland froze police staffing completely in the wake of the George Floyd event, and then cut the OPD budget by $15 million and also reduced sworn officer staffing from 780 to 730. Eliminated 50 police officer jobs.
- ImPostingOnHN 2mo agoDid crime rates go up 218% like police spending did? And are they still up there?
- andsoitis 2mo ago> Lieutenant Timothy Dolan, a 26-year veteran who leads the traffic unit and serves as vice president of the OPOA police union, was paid $493,247 in overtime in 2024. Combined with his salary and other pay, this netted him a $711,000 paycheck, making him OPD’s highest-paid employee — a title he’s held for several years now. His pay was almost double that of the chief of police and nearly three times the mayor’s paycheck. His total compensation, including pension and healthcare benefits, was $879,000. He is also the head of the labor union…
- ApolloFortyNine 2mo ago>This is generally about 1.5 times their normal pay. >Lieutenant Timothy Dolan, a 26-year veteran who leads the traffic unit and serves as vice president of the OPOA police union, was paid $493,247 in overtime in 2024. Combined with his salary and other pay, this netted him a $711,000 paycheck, making him OPD’s highest-paid employee Well I'm just going to have to guess his OT is actually 2x and not 1.5x, as otherwise he's working more than 80 hours a week. Or maybe he's only expected to work something like 20 hours a week? >On July 9, Dolan reported he worked 23 hours. The next day, he worked 16 hours, and for the following three days, he worked 15 hours each. It just looks like the attorney general in this area has been asleep at the wheel.
- faidit 2mo agoUnion rules cause double time (2x pay) to kick in at lower daily and weekly thesholds than at non union jobs.
- QuercusMax 2mo agoYou really think he was working 23 hours one day and then 15-16 for the rest of the week? That sounds like timecard padding to me. No way he's not spending a significant portion of the job asleep, unless he's severely abusing stimulants.
- blackjack_ 2mo agoYeah this is “butt on chair” definition of working at best. I’ve worked 80 hour weeks, doing 15-16 hour days consecutively will obliterate you, and also hopefully you live upstairs because commute times start eating into your sleep time quickly
- cucumber3732842 2mo agoThis. And his position of seniority in the union likely gets him close to first pick of the shifts and jobs that lend themselves best to this.
- segmondy 2mo agoThieves, but does it matter. But what does it matter? Thievery runs to the highest post of the land.
- chaps 2mo agoIt does matter and you're lying to yourself if you think it doesn't.
- shevy-java 2mo agoPeople pay taxes, so that is their money really. Of course it does matter. The system is broken when money is stolen from the public like in this case (most likely if found out to be true). That's a problem that is much bigger than merely one cop abusing the system. Several people must have benefitted here.
- KellyCriterion 2mo agoActually, quite OK and absolutely in range, Id say? Civil cervants need more & better options to get a higher payment within their org structure, I say.
- nemomarx 2mo ago490k on a salary of 200k is in range? I want to know what sector you work in, that sounds like a very lucrative role.
- KellyCriterion 2mo agoHere on HN everyone talks about 300-400k north? So therefore, everybody should be fine with 490.000 USD for someone who is not developing "ad tech" and instead doing something "at least somehow useful"? Also I do not understand the downvoters: Is that civil cervants like police should not be able to bill overtime? All these things are the reasons why those jobs are mostly considered not attractive, therefore the gov should think about payment?
- nemomarx 2mo agoI don't make North of 150, don't look at me. And also it's 490 on top of his base salary, which is already higher than mine to start with. But also he's transparently not actually working those overtime hours, so he is not "doing something useful". Like a lot of cops, he's just draining public money pretending to work. Unfortunately this is not uncommon. Anyone reporting 80 hours of overtime in a week should really be looked into - 23 hours in a day the same. Even if someone actually was awake and in theory working that long, they shouldn't be allowed to, and should be required to go home after some cap of hours to actually be able to usefully work. I would put it at 10 hours a day personally.
- aftbit 2mo agoThe police unions own SF and Oakland politically. It's really quite embarrassing.
- talon8635 2mo agoAnd teachers unions. And it’s funny how fans of one hate the other and vice versa.
- jst1fthsdys 2mo agoSays a lot if you are a fan of the police union and aren't a cop.
- talon8635 2mo agoI’m neutral. My point is that it says a lot to be “pro union… except that one”
- aftbit 2mo agoClassic beat 'em vs teach 'em dilemma.
- talon8635 2mo agoA drastic over simplification, since police do more than beat random strangers, and teachers are performing worse than they ever have, by far.
- conscion 2mo agoAll government unions make no sense. You can't have fair labor bargaining when the employees are responsible for electing their own bosses.
- monkpit 2mo ago> […] even when department staffing increased, overtime continued to go up. From 2011 to 2024, staffing increased by nearly 9%. Over the same period, overtime went up by almost 200%. The data in this article is good, but this piece is really weak. They should have just left this blurb out.
- xp84 2mo agoCare to elaborate?
- monkpit 2mo agoIt implies that these two should be directly related without acknowledging any other contributing factors. It’s implying “overtime is a function of staffing, staffing went up so overtime should go down”. What if the population went up? What if there’s more work for 1 person to do for whatever reason, like some new process? What if crime rates changed? What if traffic beats were more demanding due to new roads or whatever? The rest of the data in the article is more damning and directly correlated to the point they’re trying to make. This specific data point just raises more questions than answers and feels like they’re trying to dogpile instead of being journalists, and it would have made their case stronger if they left it out, imo.
- jeffbee 2mo agoThere is no police agency in the Bay Area more deserving of dissolution than the Oakland Police. Oakland should take a page from the playbook of Camden, New Jersey, and completely delete the department, creating a new one under different leadership and with none of the former staff. In Camden, cops who wanted to stay on had to apply and take a psychiatric evaluation, which I think is a great idea for Oakland. I doubt even a bare majority of the current cops would survive a competitive evaluation.
- slowin 2mo agoI know "defund the police" brings extreme ire from the neo-liberals to the conservatives in the US, but I don't know how you can look at this, and think anything else. These guys are decked out in fully blown war paraphernalia (despite roofers and garbage men being much more dangerous professions). They have drones, helicopters, humvees, all kinds of tactical war tech... 100% of that money should go toward investing in the community and it will provide better results, I'm sure it will lower crime too. Has anyone ever called the police? I have, a couple of times. They did nothing and seemed to have sub-highschool education when I interacted with them. I also knew police families growing up. Every single one of them was a raging racist. Something is dangerously wrong with policing in the US (we have the largest prison population in the world). Cutting their funding seems like a great step 1.
- strictnein 2mo ago> I know "defund the police" brings extreme ire from the neo-liberals to the conservatives in the US, but I don't know how you can look at this, and think anything else In my area, the "Defund the Police" folks on the city council have directly caused a massive increase in overtime by actively thwarting efforts by the mayor and police chief to help improve work conditions and recruiting for the police force. I look at this and see what I see when I look at any government agency: mismanagement and government worker unions with too much power. > These guys are decked out in fully blown war paraphernalia What "guys" are? I see cops every day and none of them are dressed like that. > Has anyone ever called the police? I have, a couple of times. Yep, they've been very responsive and helpful. > I also knew police families growing up. Every single one of them was a raging racist. Sounds like you surrounded yourself with bad people?
- shevy-java 2mo ago> In my area, the "Defund the Police" folks on the city council have directly caused a massive increase in overtime by actively thwarting efforts by the mayor and police chief to help improve work conditions and recruiting for the police force. Here you try to shift blame. Is it really the fault of the defund-the-police folks that a single cop gets almost 500k paid per year? How were this the case? Something is fundamentally broken if cops are paid so much more than regular people.
- tfigueroa 2mo agoThis is the system. I was a juror in a trial against Oakland where they were found to have been doing this - well over a decade ago. Oakland’s police department in particular has been in disarray for a very long time. Employees in any profession are going to test boundaries and see what they can get away with. There was a similar report of a BART employee racking up incredible overtime as well. It’s ultimately whatever the system permits.
- talon8635 2mo agoThis, and what it demands. Is the place understaffed? Last I checked, yes. Are the overtime hours unnecessary, or there literally aren’t any others staffed to cover them? I did a ride along with OPD, and they were severely understaffed and the number of active unit cars at any given time were insanely small for the size of the city, not to mention a city with such a high crime rate. If there are abuses of the system, they should be prosecuted, absolutely. I’m not sure that’s the entire story here though
- exolymph 2mo agoIt's both. OPD is dramatically under-staffed, and also trash. Needs a complete overhaul.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- shevy-java 2mo agoYou'd think the USA would be very transparent about it here. After all cops are paid by the public. So when a city can not explain cops becoming millionaires, this is a much bigger problem than merely that individual cop getting rich. It also undermines a system since cops have certain privileges by default.
- advisedwang 2mo agoIt's bad that cities and states can't get a firm grip on this kind of stuff. But this is a transparency success story. The wages were reported on. The press published a story about it. They were able to get "overtime worked forms" records from OPD. In many other places (including may places in the US) you would never find out about this.
- nelsonic 2mo agoPeople who are payed by taxes should all be required to use time-tracking apps and justify their time. This is smells of abusing a broken system for personal gain.
- Refreeze5224 2mo agoThis smells of a system working as designed. Cops exist to protect property, capital, and the status quo. The people whom they actually exist to serve have no issue using tax dollars for this purpose.
- slibhb 2mo agoThis is business as usual for public sector unions. Focusing on police unions is a good way to highlight these issues to leftists who reflexively both defend unions and criticize police
- brrwind 2mo ago> Lieutenant Timothy Dolan, a 26-year veteran who leads the traffic unit and serves as vice president of the OPOA police union, was paid $493,247 in overtime in 2024 All that overtime with the traffic unit, and what to show for it? Anyone who lives in the Bay knows that cops have completely abdicated their mandate and responsibility for traffic enforcement. The roads truly feel like the Wild West, and those who "serve and protect" are laughing their way to the bank.
- iamleppert 2mo agoWhy does a police department need an executive team, complete with corporate headshots? These officers need to be tried and convicted of fraud and whoever let this happen in the city needs to face charges for criminal conduct.
- josefritzishere 2mo agoSeems like classic felony embezzling.
- M95D 2mo agoThe city could pay a full-time auditor to just follow this cop around and count his hours of work and they would still pay less money in total.