The NYPD’s overtime system operates like a financial shell game, where millions of dollars can disappear into bureaucratic black holes with almost no accountability. This systemic opacity came into sharp focus with a recent scandal involving NYPD Lieutenant Quathisha Epps, who accused Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey of demanding sexual favors in exchange for overtime opportunities. Epps alleged that Maddrey repeatedly coerced her into sexual activities to secure lucrative overtime assignments, exposing deep-rooted problems in how the department manages its financial resources and personnel.
The harsh truth is we don’t actually know how much overtime truly belongs to the Chief of Department’s office. That’s because the city’s accounting structure aggregates overtime from various NYPD departments into this division’s budget, creating a system where tracking real overtime becomes virtually impossible.
The opacity isn’t accidental – it’s architectural. The NYPD’s overtime accounting system is less a financial ledger and more a shell game, where complexity isn’t a bug, but a feature designed to transform transparency into a magic trick of bureaucratic misdirection.
Yesterday, I reported that the NYPD’s Chief of Department division spent $532.1 million on uniformed overtime against just $53.5 million in uniformed base salaries – a staggering 10-to-1 ratio. What initially looked like a smoking gun of overtime abuse turned out to reveal an even more troubling systemic issue: New York City’s method of tracking police overtime creates a maze where abuse can easily hide.
After diving deeper into budget documents, I discovered this ratio reflects accounting practices, not actual overtime worked. The city simply dumps overtime from various commands into the Chief of Department’s accounts – making it impossible to track how much overtime that office actually spends.
The Numbers Tell the Story
NYPD overtime accounting is divided among various tracking systems, making the detection of fraud akin to solving a puzzle with pieces scattered across different rooms. The NYC Council budget reports actual fiscal year uniformed overtime expenses across 28 bureaus and accounting subdivisions in the NYPD. The separate overtime reports issued by the NYPD show uniformed overtime expenses by 8 borough patrols, other bureaus/citywide, and a one-time collective bargaining impact amount for the first three quarters of fiscal year 2023. Both reports measure the same uniformed officer overtime but allocate it differently.
Here’s how the NYPD’s overtime accounting becomes a magic trick: In fiscal year 2023, NYPD overtime reports showed uniformed officers in Borough Commands earned $259.9 million in overtime. But when you look at the City Council’s budget documents, only $6.5 million of that was expensed under Borough Commands.
Where did the missing $253.4 million go? It was absorbed into the Chief of Department division’s massive $503.5 million overtime expense. But wait, there’s more: Another $510.2 million sits in a vague “Other Bureaus/Citywide” category, and $50.9 million in collective bargaining costs have no clear destination.
The total? A staggering $821 million in overtime. Yet the City Council’s documents show only $6.5 million for Borough Command units, leaving $814.5 million scattered across 20 different bureaus and subdivisions.
The money appears in both sets of books, but good luck tracking where each specific dollar actually went. That’s the genius of this system: it’s designed to be untraceable. When the math looks this complicated, it’s not an accident – it’s a feature.
In her EEOC complaint, Lt. Epps alleged that Maddrey and other NYPD executives could edit overtime lists to “hide the true number of overtime abusers“. One can’t help but wonder: Where was the City Council’s oversight while these lists were allegedly being manipulated?
Failed Oversight
City leadership’s response to this scandal raises serious questions about their oversight capabilities. Mayor Adams, who exempted the NYPD from previous budget cuts and allowed overtime to balloon past $820 million, only ordered new controls after abuse allegations became public.
Speaker Adrienne Adams and Finance Chair Justin Brannan, despite having detailed overtime reports from their own Finance Division, failed to spot or act on clear warning signs. While Brannan now claims it shouldn’t take a scandal to get everyone’s attention, his committee had years of mounting overtime costs and opaque accounting practices documented in their own reports.
Looking Forward
Mayor Adams’ new overtime controls miss the fundamental issue. The real problem isn’t just who approves overtime, but how the city’s system of parallel books and aggregated numbers makes meaningful oversight nearly impossible.
When hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars flow through a system this opaque, we need more than reactive controls after scandals emerge. We need proactive oversight and true transparency.
Until city leadership demands genuine transparency, we’re trapped in a system where overtime abuse is discovered by accident—not oversight. When hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds can disappear with a bureaucratic sleight of hand, that’s not just a problem. It’s a betrayal.
Written by Sam Antar
© 2024 Sam Antar. All rights reserved.