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- Hacker News
- It's not fraud if it's the point. Oakland's government isn't poorly run from the perspective of the criminals, in and out of government, profiting off of the dysfunction.
- If he worked those hours, it seems fair. If he wasn't working, it's fraud. Comparable to CEO pay at most companies, excluding the huge ones?by axus
- You'd think the USA would be very transparent about it here. After all cops are paid by the public. So when a city can not explain cops becoming millionaires, this is a much bigger problem than merely that individual cop getting rich. It also undermines a system since cops have certain privileges by default.by shevy-java
- It's bad that cities and states can't get a firm grip on this kind of stuff.
But this is a transparency success story. The wages were reported on. The press published a story about it. They were able to get "overtime worked forms" records from OPD. In many other places (including may places in the US) you would never find out about this.
by advisedwang - The city could pay a full-time auditor to just follow this cop around and count his hours of work and they would still pay less money in total.by M95D
- this police officer made most the $490k in overtime "reviewing traffic reports".
sounds like $50 of work for Gemini could replace $490,000 of that officer's overtime.
by jjtheblunt - Don't dare them to replace cops with AI. That's what they want you to demand, so they can replace cops with AI.by TheRealPomax
- Why does a police department need an executive team, complete with corporate headshots? These officers need to be tried and convicted of fraud and whoever let this happen in the city needs to face charges for criminal conduct.by iamleppert
- First there was the 10x engineer, now there’s the 10x cop.by gizajob
- LOLby seki285
- That is Robocop minus the maintenance costs.by tartoran
- There is no police agency in the Bay Area more deserving of dissolution than the Oakland Police. Oakland should take a page from the playbook of Camden, New Jersey, and completely delete the department, creating a new one under different leadership and with none of the former staff. In Camden, cops who wanted to stay on had to apply and take a psychiatric evaluation, which I think is a great idea for Oakland. I doubt even a bare majority of the current cops would survive a competitive evaluation.by jeffbee
- People who are payed by taxes should all be required to use time-tracking apps and justify their time. This is smells of abusing a broken system for personal gain.by nelsonic
- This smells of a system working as designed. Cops exist to protect property, capital, and the status quo. The people whom they actually exist to serve have no issue using tax dollars for this purpose.by Refreeze5224
- The police unions own SF and Oakland politically. It's really quite embarrassing.by aftbit
- And teachers unions.
And it’s funny how fans of one hate the other and vice versa.
by talon8635 - > A recent report by several civilian city unions found that over the past 15 years, even when department staffing increased, overtime continued to go up. From 2011 to 2024, staffing increased by nearly 9%. Over the same period, overtime went up by almost 200%.
Some quick googling seems to indicate that Oakland's population also increased nearly 15% in the same time frame. And then, of course, COVID wreaked havoc on everyone in the early 2020s. Crime rates went up, but police staffing remained the same, so more opportunities for overtime?
edit: actually, it looks like Oakland froze police staffing completely in the wake of the George Floyd event, and then cut the OPD budget by $15 million and also reduced sworn officer staffing from 780 to 730. Eliminated 50 police officer jobs.
by petcat - Did crime rates go up 218% like police spending did? And are they still up there?
- This is the system. I was a juror in a trial against Oakland where they were found to have been doing this - well over a decade ago. Oakland’s police department in particular has been in disarray for a very long time.
Employees in any profession are going to test boundaries and see what they can get away with. There was a similar report of a BART employee racking up incredible overtime as well.
It’s ultimately whatever the system permits.
by tfigueroa - This, and what it demands. Is the place understaffed? Last I checked, yes. Are the overtime hours unnecessary, or there literally aren’t any others staffed to cover them? I did a ride along with OPD, and they were severely understaffed and the number of active unit cars at any given time were insanely small for the size of the city, not to mention a city with such a high crime rate.
If there are abuses of the system, they should be prosecuted, absolutely. I’m not sure that’s the entire story here though
by talon8635 - >This is generally about 1.5 times their normal pay.
>Lieutenant Timothy Dolan, a 26-year veteran who leads the traffic unit and serves as vice president of the OPOA police union, was paid $493,247 in overtime in 2024. Combined with his salary and other pay, this netted him a $711,000 paycheck, making him OPD’s highest-paid employee
Well I'm just going to have to guess his OT is actually 2x and not 1.5x, as otherwise he's working more than 80 hours a week. Or maybe he's only expected to work something like 20 hours a week?
>On July 9, Dolan reported he worked 23 hours. The next day, he worked 16 hours, and for the following three days, he worked 15 hours each.
It just looks like the attorney general in this area has been asleep at the wheel.
- If you work 40 hours in two days, everything except 16 hours that week is overtime.by legitster
- Union rules cause double time (2x pay) to kick in at lower daily and weekly thesholds than at non union jobs.by faidit
- He'll be investigated by other thin blue line cops who also nap in their squad cars and be found innocent of any wrong doing.by dogsgobork
- California base overtime schedule is 1x for 8 hours in a day, 1.5x for the next 4 hours in a day, then 2x for any time after that. Additionally, any time above 40 hrs in a workweek or on a 7th day of consecutive work in a workweek gets 1.5x, and any time after 8 on that 7th day gets 2x.
Thus, it's possible to only get paid your base rate for 16 hours in a workweek, if you work more than 40 hours in the first 2 days of the week. For example, if I worked 24 hours on Monday, and 16 hours on Tuesday, I'd be making 1x * 8hrs on Monday + 1.5x*4hrs on Monday + 2x*12 hours on Monday, then 1x*8hrs on Tuesday + 1.5x*4hrs on Tuesday + 2x*4hrs on Tuesday. On every subsequent day of that week, my standard workday would be paid at 1.5x for the first 12 hours, then 2x for any time after that, until the seventh consecutive day, where I'd get 1.5x for 8hrs, then 2x after that.
All together, in California, if you work 24/7 for a week, you end up with
16hrs@1x + 64hrs@1.5x + 88hrs at 2x, netting out to an effective 188hrs per week.
IMO, this whole system is a little busted owing to the fixed workweek (it's not "any 7 day period", it's "over the course of a recurring 7 day schedule")
- > It just looks like the attorney general in this area has been asleep at the wheel.
Oakland mayor and progressive DA ousted amid crime complaints: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/09/oakland-mayor-progr...
As a Bay Area resident and someone who leans very far left - I was not surprised by the impact, and outcome of "policy by slogan".
by zer00eyz - >On July 9, Dolan reported he worked 23 hours. The next day, he worked 16 hours, and for the following three days, he worked 15 hours each
That sounds like one of the jobs I've had. One job was so bad that when they were designing their new offices, I asked if they could add a shower since I was pretty much living there. (Came back as a no because of insurance/liability costs.) The shit of it was that I was a salary employee so I never saw a dime of overtime. It did not take long for me to look for a new job. Worst experience ever for me.
by dylan604 - > It just looks like the attorney general in this area has been asleep at the wheel.
Whoever it is, that's always the case in government. It's not their money and any accountability like this is so rare, that there's no need to do things like audit the books or to ask that there be a documented reason why this particular cop needed to do all that OT. The chain of responsibility just abruptly terminates with someone who has the prerogative to approve things without explanation, and that person doesn't (legally or department-policy-wise) owe anyone an explanation, and he won't give one. (Because usually the answer is "Because he's in on the scam himself")
Note: I'm not saying that every civil servant scams. Far from it. I'm saying that conditions are nearly always ripe for this type of thing because those in charge won't be held responsible, and those at the very top are elected officials, who are in more and more areas only vulnerable to primary challenges. So if you have a good enough rep for "supporting team blue/red" you can cruise past plenty of oopsie-daisies like this by just scoring cheap political points.
by xp84