Police overtime called a waste

Taylor Winkel

Taylor Winkel Jul 6, 2025

Feb 6, 2018

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                <h1>Police overtime called a waste</h1>
                <h2><p>The city’s Office of Professional Accountability has found that Seattle Police Department wasted $1 million-plus in overtime related to its Training and Education Section last year. Officers were earning overtime pay and using paid leave simultaneously, being clocked in before their shifts actually started, and in one case an</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/taylorjwinkel-gmail-com/">Taylor Winkel</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
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            <p>The city’s Office of Professional Accountability <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/OPA/Special%20Reports/RecommendationsForManagementActionTraining.pdf?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">has found </a>that Seattle Police Department wasted $1 million-plus in overtime related to its Training and Education Section last year. Officers were earning overtime pay and using paid leave simultaneously, being clocked in before their shifts actually started, and in one case an employee earned 31.5 hours of overtime for one day. OPA didn’t point fingers at any particular individual, and instead attributed the the fault to the department as a whole. OPA Director Pierce Murphy also wrote that he was encouraged by work on new training curricula by the Training and Education Section this year. New Chief Kathleen O'Toole <a href="http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2014/09/30/chief-otoole-calls-for-audit-of-spd-training-overtime-spending/?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">immediately took up</a> Murphy's call for additional study by the City Auditor of ways to improve operations in the section. —T.W.</p>
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The city’s Office of Professional Accountability has found that Seattle Police Department wasted $1 million-plus in overtime related to its Training and Education Section last year. Officers were earning overtime pay and using paid leave simultaneously, being clocked in before their shifts actually started, and in one case an employee earned 31.5 hours of overtime for one day. OPA didn’t point fingers at any particular individual, and instead attributed the the fault to the department as a whole. OPA Director Pierce Murphy also wrote that he was encouraged by work on new training curricula by the Training and Education Section this year. New Chief Kathleen O'Toole immediately took up Murphy's call for additional study by the City Auditor of ways to improve operations in the section. —T.W.

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By Taylor Winkel

Taylor Winkel is a Journalism and Political Science student at the University of Washington. Follow her on Twitter: @twinkelnews. She can be emailed at Taylor.Winkel@crosscut.com.