Sex, Lies, and Overtime: Inside the NYPD’s Financial Black Box

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 dysfunction 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, transforming what should be transparent financial records into an impenetrable maze of numbers.

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 an indicator of potential overtime manipulation turned out to reveal an even more troubling systemic issue: New York City’s method of tracking police overtime creates a labyrinth where financial misconduct 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.

A crucial detail emerges when examining the overtime data: The NYPD Overtime Report claims $259.9 million in overtime across borough commands. However, the City Council’s budget document—which represents the actual dollars spent—shows only $6.46 million. This isn’t just a minor accounting error; it represents a fundamental breakdown in financial transparency.

NYPD vs City Council Patrol Borough Uniformed Overtime Expense FY 2023

The data reveals a stark divide: The NYPD’s overtime reports show Brooklyn North and South commands claiming tens of millions in overtime worked, while City Council budget documents show they only charged $50,000 and $40,000 respectively to their accounts. Meanwhile, Queens North and Staten Island somehow charged far more – $2.32 million and $2.21 million. This mismatch between reported overtime and actual charges makes tracking real spending virtually impossible.

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.

NYPD Overtime Money Flow

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 that’s not all: 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.

Follow the Money NYPD Overtime's Invisible Trails

The money appears in both sets of books, but tracking specific dollars becomes an exercise in futility. 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“. Given the Byzantine complexity of the system, one has to wonder whether that was a feature, not a bug.

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 from $372 million in the adopted budget to a staggering $820 million in actual spending, 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.

Somehow these warning signs also slipped past City Comptroller Brad Lander and his army of 700 auditors.

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 parallel accounting systems and aggregated numbers make 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 genuine transparency. Until city leadership demands real accountability, we’re trapped in a system where overtime abuse is discovered through scandal—not oversight. That’s not just a failure of governance; it’s a betrayal of public trust.

Written by Sam Antar
© 2025 Sam Antar. All rights reserved.

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