Chicago Police Supt. Terry Hillard has issued new guidelines for trimming overtime, hoping to clear up confusion that has frustrated investigators and led an armored car company recently to offer to pay to keep two detectives on the case of $800,000 in stolen cash.
The new rules urge department bosses to be frugal in approving overtime, noting that the city, like much of the country, is in financial straits since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But in issuing the memo, department officials are acknowledging miscommunications about the new policy, including allegations that detectives have been sent home in the middle of big investigations. To fix that, the memo adds, “overtime in certain cases is not just inevitable, it’s smart policing.”
“Police work is all about discretion. It is why we have to rely on our field personnel to make the right call,” said Deputy Supt. Barbara McDonald, who heads administrative services and oversees overtime.
“We’re saying to our managers, look at these situations carefully,” she said, “and if [work] can be done just as well the next day, without harm, do it.”
Hillard’s Thursday memo came two weeks after orders were given for department commanders to cut overtime to help the city cover a $115 million budget deficit.
Though police overtime has been cut about 20 percent over the past two years, it costs roughly $3 million a month.
Mayor Richard Daley, who on Friday announced layoffs of about 425 city workers, also has ordered other departments to shave costs. He hinted that the complaints were little more than bellyaching by cops and other city workers who have long abused overtime.
“We are talking about inappropriate overtime,” he said. “I get this in every department–the Water Department, the Sewers Department–all the departments coming to me saying, `We want overtime.’ That is part of our way of life. . . . I am sorry. . . . There are no sacred cows.”
But officials have noted that policing rarely is divvied up into neat eight-hour shifts. “It’s not like Streets and San, where you can say, `put a cone around that hole and fix it later,'” one police official said.
But the message got confused, and some department supervisors apparently mistook the order as a cancellation of all overtime. In the past two weeks, police officials have been fielding complaints from investigators about officers being told to walk off the job the moment their shifts ended, which they say could compromise investigations.
“Our feeling is that with proper management and supervision, there should be little or no impact in actual crime and successful conclusion of investigations,” said Deputy Supt. Anthony Chiesa, head of the department’s management and accountability office. “But listen to what I’m saying–`if our management and supervision is done correctly.'”
Also last week, a county judge summoned the head of the Youth Division to court to answer allegations that supervisors are limiting the number of officers allowed to show up in court, no matter how many are subpoenaed, according to a source familiar with the summons. Department officials said they met with prosecutors Thursday to resolve that incident and figure out how to reduce the number of officers subpoenaed in certain cases.
Chief of Detectives Phil Cline said he has heard such allegations himself, but he is unaware of any criminal cases that have been compromised by cutting down on extended hours.
“The vast majority of the cases, the supervisors made the right decisions,” he said.
The most often-cited case has been the theft June 10 of nearly $800,000 from an armored van owned by Denver-based ATM service company Bantek West.
In that case, Harrison Area Detectives Robert Fujara and Robert Mihajlov won quick approval to their request to work overtime. But barely an hour into their overtime, Fujara and Mihajlov were told to go home and turn their leads over to the next shift.
By week’s end, with exasperated company officials saying each new detective team seemed less interested in the Bantek case than the previous one, the company took a remarkable step: It offered a blank check to cover any overtime necessary to get the job done.
“That’s how desperate we were,” said Michael DeVille, vice president of the Denver-based company and chief of security. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Some city officials, including the head of the police and fire commission, also expressed concern.
“We need police all the time and need more of them,” said Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), chairman of the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee.
Neither Fujara nor Mihajlov would discuss the Bantek case with the Tribune.
Police officials vowed the city would not let down its guard.
“We’re going to do what we need to do to keep the public safe,” McDonald said. “If that means overtime, it means overtime, period.”
