City Council leaders pressed NYPD officials on overtime spending and accountability in a budget hearing Thursday, questioning them over recent reports on the pace and transparency of the department’s efforts to investigate its own ranks.
The department has spent $715 million in overtime through April of this year, according to a tally from the Council mentioned at the hearing — 60% over the amount allowed in the last adopted budget.
“The budget is not a suggestion,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said at the hearing.
Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the department plans to reduce its overtime by 4% over the coming year, and noted that the majority of the force’s extra hours have come from added patrols in the subway. Police officials said that major crimes in the subway are down 8% so far this year compared to the same period in 2022.
The proposed executive budget from Mayor Eric Adams puts the NYPD’s operating budget for the coming fiscal year at $5.31 billion, a $220 million decrease from the last fiscal year’s adopted budget. The department’s headcount has 569 fewer positions than in the last budget.
Officials said the budget reflects the department fully meeting the 4% target in spending cuts required by Mayor Adams’ citywide Program to Eliminate the Gap, which has implemented across-the-board cuts at agencies to reduce large expected gaps in coming years between spending needs and city income.
Sewell said the department has transferred more than 1,000 police personnel from desk jobs to patrol duties over the past year.
The police commissioner suggested that the shrinking headcount at the NYPD could be a barrier to reducing crime.
“If we were at our true, full head count, how much safer could New York City be?” Sewell said. “This ideal is predicated on a fully resourced police department.”
NYPD officials also faced questions over two high-profile incidents that made headlines in recent weeks. One report from NY1 editorial partner The City found that the department had yet to hire an outside party to look into racist and misogynistic online comments made by a now-fired official in charge of preventing discrimination in employment matters. Another report from ProPublica showed that the NYPD failed to fully question officers involved in the shooting death of Kawaski Trawick, a man who suffered from mental health issues who called 911 after locking himself out of his apartment.
NYPD deputy commissioner for management and budget Kristine Ryan said that the department was “actively negotiating” an agreement with an outside investigator to prepare a report, required by city law, on the fired official’s online comments.
The department has had a “more protracted back and forth with the vendor than we initially hoped,” Ryan said.
Speaker Adams pressed Sewell intently over the Trawick reporting, saying that the NYPD’s two-year investigation of the incident, in which the two officers involved were each interviewed once for 30 minutes, “at best gives the appearance of undermining the accountability process.”
The council speaker asked Sewell whether she would commit to making a decision on the findings in the NYPD’s investigation in the coming weeks.
Sewell said that there were still final arguments to be made in the internal administrative proceedings over the incident. “When that case does come to my desk, I will make a decision as quickly as possible,” she said.
The most recent budget documents did not include the financial impact of the department’s recently negotiated labor deal with the Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents the largest share of NYPD officers. Officials at the hearing declined to give any information about the deal, but said its spending requirements would be included in the final budget documents.