UPDATED: March 21, 2019 at 1:58 p.m.

Syracuse Police Chief Kenton Buckner said at a City Hall meeting on Wednesday that he plans to switch police officers to patrols shifts, hire more officers and review the department’s highest-paid officers to reduce overtime spending.

The city spent more than $8.2 million on overtime for the Syracuse Police Department in the 2017 fiscal year and members of the Common Council have criticized the department’s overtime spending in the past.

Buckner said SPD has spent $7.4 million on overtime this fiscal year, which ends in June. Institutions like Syracuse University and city schools have reimbursed the department $2 million for events where additional police security is needed. Buckner, who started as chief in December, said in his first four months he has worked to get a handle on overtime spending.

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The SPD has 406 officers, but not all of them are patrolling. Some perform community relations functions and others serve in administrative roles, such as in the records department. Buckner said he’s working to change the shifts of community relations to nighttime shifts.

Community relations officers were previously scheduled to work 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., but most of their duties involved attending community meetings at night, Buckner said. He said it didn’t make sense to pay those officers overtime to attend the meetings.

“In no way, shape or form is this any shade on any of the individuals working those hours,” Buckner said. “This is just me trying to be a good steward of the dollars we have and how to reduce some of the overtime.”

The department is also in the process of reviewing its top 30 overtime earners.

Buckner also said he plans to move sworn officers from administrative positions to patrol shifts, decreasing the amount of money SPD has to spend on overtime for patrol shifts. The department would hire civilians to replace the officers removed from administrative positions.

When the department has a large number of vacancies, officers have to work extra hours to pick up the slack — resulting in higher overtime spending. A total of 29 officers retired from the department between July 1, 2018 and Feb. 28, 2019, Buckner said. SPD expects an additional six officers to retire by April, but a new officer class graduating in May will put the total count at 439 officers.

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Buckner said the department aims to keep at least 80 percent of its new recruit classes in patrol units. This would decrease overtime because less officers will be needed to fill patrol units while officers are in training, he said.

The department is currently aiming for a total of 463 officers. Buckner said this could be made possible by increasing the size of the next recruit class or by hiring two classes at once instead of one.

Councilor at-large Steve Thompson, who previously served as Syracuse’s police chief, said the council has already approved funding for the 463 officers. The department only requires Mayor Ben Walsh’s approval to allocate the funds, he added.

The Syracuse Fire Department also struggles with overtime pay and vacancies, Chief Michael Monds said at the Wednesday meeting.

Monds said the fire department has 359 members, 92 percent of whom are sworn firefighters. The other eight percent of employees are staff. The department currently has 14 vacancies and expects a total of 24 retirements by January 2020, he said.

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“Staffing is at the very minimum where we need to be for firefighters on the line and as far as the functions we need to do as a staff,” Monds said.

The fire department spent $4.8 million on overtime in 2017 and $3.9 million in 2018 — the lowest it has been in the past several years, Monds said. Overtime spending for this year is projected to be $4.1 million, he added.

Monds attributed the drop in overtime from 2017 to 2018 to the hiring of a new class of firefighters.

Monds said half of the fire alarms and calls in Onondaga County are responded to by Syracuse’s fire department. In 2014, the department responded to a record number of 28,000 alarms. The department has lost 88 sworn positions during the past several years.

“We’re doing more and more work with less and less people,” Monds said.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the identity of the person in the dominant photo was unclear. 

Published on March 20, 2019 at 10:39 pm

Contact Casey: casey@dailyorange.com | @caseydarnell_