Seattle officer’s overtime case shows gaps in monitoring

SEATTLE (AP) – A Seattle civilian police watch dog group has found an officer repeatedly working over 90 hours a week and earning so much overtime that he was the highest-paid city clerk for a year at more than $ 400,000 – and none his superiors noticed.

The Seattle Office of Police Accountability’s review of Officer Ron Willis’ case found 15 times he worked more than 90 hours a week in 2019 and identified numerous gaps in the Seattle Police Department’s ability to monitor overtime, the Seattle reported Times.

In a letter to interim chief Adrian Diaz, OPA director Andrew Myerberg asked the police department to keep track of hours in a centralized database or to require department staff to “flag employees who may be working overtime”.

As a result of the review, Willis was suspended for a day without pay for working more than the maximum number of hours allowed by departmental regulations. A police spokesman said Willis was unavailable for comment and efforts to reach him through the newspaper had not been successful.

Police have long struggled to monitor overtime and have been the subject of several critical findings by city inspectors and the supervisory group.

A 2016 audit of the department’s overtime control described confusion and inconsistencies in logging overtime pay with little independent monitoring. Hours could be entered on an electronic time sheet or on paper, which creates the possibility of double payments, the auditor noted.

The gaps in supervision persist. Summing up its investigation of Willis, the OPA found that overtime records are kept on paper, making it difficult to find and review hours quickly. Supervisors who approve an official’s timesheet do not have access to overtime records.

“A database that acts as a one-stop shop for all overtime,” coupled with some mandatory supervisor reviews, “would likely fix this problem,” wrote OPA.

In his interview with OPA, Willis did not deny working more than 90 hours a week and denied being paid for the time he was not working. The official said he felt his hours were all allowed under the “public safety” exception, which allows Seattle officials to work beyond the maximum, but acknowledged that he had the necessary exception have not requested.

OPA found no evidence that Willis’ performance had suffered and said he had been the subject of few complaints and violence.

The OPA review failed to conclusively determine whether Willis was working all the hours he was paid for, citing the restrictions on clocking in and out of police officers that have hindered similar investigations in the past.