Officer CS

This year, yet again, Dallas Police and Fire Departments are catching it in the new budget. The City Council has decided to put police and fire on the civil service 40-hour work week. This looks great on the books. In reality, it will be a disaster.

An officer will be paid straight time for the first 40 hours the officer works. Vacation days, sick days and compensatory days do not count towards the 40 hours of an officer's pay cycle. Any overtime worked by the officer will only be paid at the overtime rate if the officer has already worked the full 40 hours. Jury duty, military leave and injury time will all count toward the required 40 hours. By the way, the only reason the City did not go with an 80 hour work week is that the payroll system, which is overpriced and not designed for police and fire, cannot handle it.

Officer Bob goes to court on Monday morning for a murder trial. He sits there for 8 hours. Monday night, Officer Bob goes to work for his regular shift. On Tuesday, he goes back to court and spends another 8 hours. Officer Bob works his shifts for the rest of the week, but decides to take a Vacation Day on Friday. More likely, Officer Bob has to stay home to take care of a sick family member, Officer Bob just forfeited his overtime rate for 8 of his court hours. He will earn 48 hours of straight time and only 8 hours of time and a half. If Officer Bob makes $20.00 an hour, this is a savings of $80.00 for the City. That's how it works on paper. Since I'm not a firefighter, I have no idea how this will apply to them.

According to Federal work guidelines, the City cannot force an employee to work overtime. If under the same example as above, Officer Bob works 16 hours in court, his work week was just shortened by 2 days. Officer Bob would then go to work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday work his shifts and then go home for the week. You can bet officers will be keeping themselves apprised of how many hours they have worked in a week. They will be going home when the magic number reaches 40. If that is after they have worked their full week, so be it. If it's after 2 days, that's fine too.

Only in emergency can the City require an employee to work overtime. Emergencies are clearly defined in the laws. It is not a high crime rate or low man-power. The events of September 11th or a natural disaster would qualify. Those are rare, thankfully.

The other aspect is that officers will want to leave on time. As it stands now, officers must see their calls through to the end. We do not dump things off on other officers. No matter how long it takes. No matter what we have planned with our families at the end of our shifts. We stay because the City has compensated us for it. Not any more. You can guess how long it will take for officers to stop staying over.

For the last month or so, patrol officers have been restricted from taking overtime for "late relief." Late relief means your last call went beyond the end of your shift. This could happen for several reasons. An officer might have to wait for a tow truck, take someone to jail or assist in the investigation of a serious crime, i.e. take victims to Parkland or to detectives for interviewing. A hard working officer may get between two and ten hours of overtime a week. Many get more.

The decision to deny overtime to patrol officers has crippled the department. The 8 hour work shift has essentially been reduced to a 7 hour work shift. Patrol officers are still there for the full 8 hours. But, instead of answering calls for the last 45-50 minutes, officers are heading back to the station. Dispatchers will not give out calls since they know officers will get disregarded by a supervisor.

The first day this policy went into effect, I was driving to the gas pumps to refuel my squad car prior to ending my tour of duty. The dispatcher gave me a low-priority call with only 20 minutes left in my shift. It would have taken me 20 minutes to drive across the division to the call location. I radioed dispatch I would be en route to the call, but to notify a supervisor that I would be late. I was immediately taken off the call and told to head back to the station.

We got into this mess in several ways.
(1) Last year, our beloved then-Chief Bolton pleaded to keep two very high paying civilian jobs, Assistant Director Lee and Janice Houston.
(2) Then-Chief Bolton paid their salaries out of police department overtime funds. (3) The City also did not file some required paperwork with the Federal Government in order to keep a grant. The City lost the money and again took the funds out of the overtime budget.
(4) The police department is severely understaffed. Patrol officers would not have to stay over on their shifts if there were enough officers. As it is now, patrol officers spend their entire shift running from call to call.

This is not as self-evident to most people. Civilian employees, while very essential to even the police department and fire department, are not involved in life threatening jobs. Their jobs can be done during almost any work hours. They may leave a task in the middle and pick it back up on the next work day, whenever that is.

Ms. Jones works in the water department. She is busy at her desk on paperwork. It is 4:55 PM on Friday. Will the City come to a screeching halt if Ms. Jones leaves her paperwork and goes home on time? Probably not. Will lives be lost? Very unlikely.

What if Ms Jones is a firefighter? Is she going to walk away from a four alarm blaze just because it is time to go? What if Ms. Jones is a police officer? Is she going to stop trying to break up a bloody family fight and go home? How many lives will be lost? Who will get hurt? How much money will it cost the City of Dallas in civil liability if that happens?

Police and Fire are not the elite of the City. We don't deserve any special treatment because of our power. We deserve special consideration because we put our health and safety on the line everyday. We put off family obligations because we may not get off on time. We get sick often because we are in a high stress job and we are exposed to illness from all manner of nasty people. We see people at their worst, day in and day out. It is not the exception to encounter highly upset, rude, and obnoxious people. It is the rule. We would like the City and the citizens to recognize this. We are not trying to lay down on the job.

The City Council does an excellent job of keeping the city employees at each other's throats. They divide and conquer. It's worked very well for them in the past. It's working for the City now. Police, Fire and Civilian employees need the citizens of our beloved city to recognize the antics of the City Council and take action. Call your Council member. Write them a letter. Perhaps we should all send our Council members a handcuff key. They are binding the City and handcuffing the essential services into doing nothing. What do you think?