One Oakland police officer made $490k in overtime

ratelimitsteve

maybe he just worked 40 hour days....

ctkhn

This is ridiculous. These guys need a body cam and GPS on them even for desk work.

gizajob

First there was the 10x engineer, now there’s the 10x cop.

thundercleeze

It'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.

datakan

The 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.

jjtheblunt

this 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.

petcat

> 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.

andsoitis

> 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

>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.

segmondy

Thieves, but does it matter. But what does it matter? Thievery runs to the highest post of the land.

KellyCriterion

Actually, 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.

aftbit

The police unions own SF and Oakland politically. It's really quite embarrassing.

monkpit

> […] 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.

jeffbee

There 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

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. 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.

tfigueroa

This 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.

shevy-java

You'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.

nelsonic

People 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.

slibhb

This 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

> 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.