Kent Police are spending an estimated $1.5 million on overtime costs in each of the last three years, more than twice the amount in its annual budget to cover overtime expenditures.

Despite the high overtime costs, the police force has stayed within its annual budget that includes $650,000 for overtime because of unfilled positions. The department is budgeted for 150 officers and has 146 on staff.

But when the City Council’s Public Safety Committee heard about the overtime numbers from Police Chief Ken Thomas at an Oct. 11 meeting, the three members showed plenty of concern about the high figure. Thomas said an overtime budget of $650,000 per year has been used for 10 years or more.

“A budget should reflect reality as much as possible,” said Councilman Les Thomas, a member of the Public Safety Committee, to Chief Thomas. “If we’ve had $650,000 and it’s not accurate, if it’s $1.5 million, we should be closer to that figure. I know that increases your budget, but it should be closer if we’re going over it every year.”

Chief Thomas said he asked Assistant Chief Rafael Padilla and his staff to conduct an overtime pay analysis for the last three years to get a more accurate number and that’s why he was letting the committee know about the new figures.

“I agree with Councilmember Thomas that if we are spending double what we budget for, it makes the figure irrelevant,” said Councilwoman Dana Ralph. “It seems we need to be realistic. The reality of the job is there will be injuries and people out.”

Mayor Suzette Cooke has asked Thomas that the police budget reflect actual overtime costs, said Derek Matheson, city chief administrative officer.

Chief Thomas said next year’s budget will include an additional $300,000 for overtime costs paid from the city’s school zone traffic camera fund that catches speeders at four elementary schools.

About 62 percent of the overtime costs are from the patrol staff, which includes about 90 officers, Padilla said.

“Whenever we have patrol officers out on leave or we have vacancies in our patrol staffing, we hire back an officer on overtime to cover,” said Padilla in an email.

Padilla added certain target patrol staff levels need to be met to cover peak call volume days or nights.

Chief Thomas said at one point this year as many as 28 officers were out on disability, sick leave or in the police training academy.

The other 40 percent of overtime costs are spread among shift extensions when an officer gets a call near the end of the shift that requires overtime (10 percent); sick or injury leave when overtime officers fill in (9 percent); court appearances when officers are required to be in court on their time off (6 percent); and major investigators when all divisions deal with homicides, fatality crashes, shootings or other similar incidents (6 percent). Training, special events (Kent Cornucopia Days festival) and emphasis patrols compose the rest of the overtime costs.

The police department doesn’t have any overtime limits per week or month for officers, but an officer cannot (barring a major emergency) work more than 16 hours in a 24-hour period and they are required to have an eight-hour break between shifts, Padilla said.

“When you have staff having to work extra hours, from the public safety standpoint and their safety that concerns me,” said Councilman Jim Berrios, chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

Chief Thomas told the committee the department needs about 160 to 165 officers to be fully staffed. He thanked Cooke and the council for supporting the hiring of more officers. Cooke has proposed hiring two officers in 2017 and three in 2018.

Berrios said maybe even more officers need to be hired in an effort to reduce overtime.

“Do we as a council say we need to get quicker to 160 (officers) to eliminate this issue, rather than pulling this way and that way to meet the number?” Berrios said. “We need to talk about this in the (2017-18) budget process. How long have we been battling this? A long time and eventually something is going to break.”

Ralph also said more officers might be needed.

“At what point does it make sense to turn that overtime into an additional body. …to turn it into a FTE (full-time employee)?” she said.

Meanwhile, the overtime costs continue to climb. Five homicides so far this year have boosted the numbers.

“I don’t want to guess at what the amount will be this year, but it will be more than what we spent in 2015,” Padilla said.

Kent Police overtime costs:

*2016: More than $1.5 million

2015: $1.5 million

2014: $1.7 million

2013: $1.1 million

*Exact figure yet to be determined