By Jillian Delaney
Staten Island Advance, N.Y.
NEW YORK — The New York City comptroller recently debuted a new report that reveals the staggering amount of money the city government pays for the New York City Police Department’s overtime and how to reform it.
“Overtime spending has been a clear cost the NYPD wants to rein in, especially as New York City seeks to reduce recurring expenses in light of projected budget gaps,” City Comptroller Mark Levine said in a written statement. “Overtime should be used when absolutely necessary to enable police officers to keep communities safe. This report offers an assessment for how the department can better plan for events that continue to drive up overtime costs, and highlights the potential for structural savings that can better equip the City for an uncertain economic future.”
The report revealed that the NYPD makes up 40% of annual overtime pay amid all city workers.
The comptroller estimated that in Fiscal Year 2026 ( July 1, 2025 , to June 20, 2026 ), the NYPD’s overtime will amount to a jaw-dropping $890 million — “the third highest year on record.”
As Fiscal Year 2027 approaches, the comptroller is warning that Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s executive budget will not meet the monetary demand of the total overtime spending.
Levine listed four ways in which NYPD overtime could be amended to help reduce the amount of overtime while also prioritizing public safety:
- Improve Planning for Events, Reduce Repeat Outliers.
- The NYPD’s formal written policy should require written pre-event staffing plans and post-event reviews, identify events that reliably generate overtime, and require written mitigation plans for repeat outliers, such as rotation, schedule redesign, or staffing changes, rather than recurring approvals.
- Manage Risks from Excessive Hours.
- Excessive hours increase the likelihood of errors, injuries, and other negative outcomes. The NYPD should establish minimum rest periods following mandatory overtime and extended tours, and should also establish maximum consecutive hours and days with overtime. The NYPD should also require quarterly compliance reporting and corrective action for repeat noncompliance.
- Strengthen Accountability for Recurring Overages.
- The NYPD’s written policy should require written corrective action plans for commands that exceed thresholds for two consecutive quarters or in three quarters within a fiscal year, including root-cause analysis, specific operational changes, responsible personnel, and a timeline for compliance, followed by reduction target assessments in the following two quarters.
- Build a Thoughtful Compliance Function.
- This should include formal repeat-overage escalation pathways requiring senior written review, as well as annual summaries of audit findings. Oversight should be paired with regular reporting that identifies commands with the highest overtime, fastest growth, and repeated overage explanations, and includes other standardized data collection.
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