Working overtime to curb overtime

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/11/2016 (3024 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was earlier this month, while standing at the back of the Metropolitan Entertainment Centre waiting for Winnipeg’s new police chief to be sworn in, a police officer of my acquaintance casually mentioned something that got my attention.

There are “big changes” ahead for the Winnipeg Police Service over the next couple of months.

The biggest in years, the veteran cop said.

He suggested the police service’s overtime bill was going to be one of the targets of that change.

Obviously, the timing of the officer’s remark was tied to the occasion we were both attending and the fact there was about to be a new sheriff in town.

Both city council and the Winnipeg Police Board expect new police Chief Danny Smyth to do whatever he needs to do to put a pin in the ballooning Winnipeg Police Service budget — a whopping $280.7 million in 2016.

So I asked Smyth about that in the leadup to the start of budget talks Monday where police would be making submissions to a sub-committee of the police board.

Smyth said he hadn’t made a secret of his concern about the overtime bill that is $10 million and rising with the salaries of a police service that, as of its 2015 annual report, had more than 1,900 total members, 1,451 of them sworn police officers.

“I think it’s responsible for us to manage our overtime probably better than we are now,” Smyth told me.

That’s what he intends to do.

“To just come up with a more effective system for us to be able to track and monitor overtime and really hold platoons accountable for the overtime they are involved in,” he said.

“You know, there’s a lot of legitimate overtime out there… But I want to make sure when we’re working overtime it’s for the right reason.”

Hence, I gathered, Smyth is putting the onus on platoons — and more specifically platoon leaders — to manage and justify it.

“We spend about $8 million a year on overtime and about $2 million on court overtime. It’s significant money, and it needs to be managed well.”

I asked Smyth if the court part of that budget, in particular, could be managed better.

“I would like to think we can find a better way to manage court overtime,” he said.

But Smyth also noted the police service is at a disadvantage because officers testifying at trials are subject to subpoena, which means they have no choice but to show up, whether they’re scheduled to work that day or not.

It’s well known that sometimes — even often — cops sit around on overtime waiting to testify but never do. Still, I was shocked when Smyth shared how often that happens. And why.

“What I find frustrating is that about 80 per cent of the time we’re not required to testify. But we’re subpoenaed to court. A lot of times these things are settled right at the time of the court case.”

That’s why, of course, he would like to find a way to settle more cases before his officers attend court.

“That’s something we’ve been working on,” Smyth said. “That’s an ongoing thing. We belong to a joint operating committee and members of justice are a part of that. It’s something, at the very least, we would like to tighten up a little bit.”

There is some hope on that horizon. At least there is for the court-overtime portion of the budget.

“One of the good things I see coming down the pike is traffic court. For example, justice is in the midst of changing the way evidence gets into court. So our officers won’t necessarily be required to be there in person.”

The province has passed legislation that would allow notes police make on the back of a traffic ticket to be accepted as evidence without the officers having to be in court to testify.

The province is still in the midst of implementing that process, Smyth said.

“But I’m hoping in 2017 that starts to happen.”

Smyth had something else to say about overtime that has a different and even more costly impact on the city treasury. Overtime is included as pensionable salary. And all of that is calculated on the last five highest income years, which may encourage officers to work as much OT as they can.

The police collective agreement expires near the end of December, and Smyth said he’s certain that overtime as it relates to pensionable income will be a consideration when the police association and the city begin negotiating the new contract.

He said overtime pay, as part of the pensionable salary, has been around since before he joined the service 30 years ago.

“But it’s a legitimate concern.”

Smyth doesn’t know of any other police service in Canada that has that expensive add-on as part of its collective agreement.

“I can’t think of one off the top of my head,” he said.

There’s something else Smyth would like to change that could potentially trim the cost of overtime.

As it stands, the police service doesn’t have major crime investigators — homicide detectives, for instance — who are scheduled to work on weekends.

“When something serious happens we end up calling people back. Which is, again, overtime. I’d like to see us get into a place where we have scheduled investigators working seven days a week. So that’s something we’ll explore. For sure.”

But it’s not necessarily as simple as it sounds because sometimes, of course, those detectives get subpoenaed to court during the week when overtime kicks in. So Smyth still has to calculate the cost-benefit involved in making a change to scheduled weekend duty.

“What’s better? Pay the overtime to go to court, or pay the overtime to come in on the weekend? These are some of the things we’ll explore.”

Which reminds me of something I should share.

Danny Smyth returned my call on Sunday evening from his fifth-floor office at police headquarters.

What was he doing working late on a weekend night?

That’s when he informed me about the police budget process starting Monday.

“Just wanted to make sure everything was in order.”

And that’s why they pay him the not-big-enough, big bucks.

Without the pensionable overtime

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca