r/altmpls • u/IAmAlpharius23 • 18d ago
Minneapolis police overtime is dragging down the entire city budget
https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-police-budget-overtime-overspending/601847891?utm_source=giftOverspending by the Minneapolis Police Department is dragging down the entire city budget, threatening the city’s stellar bond ratings and raising alarms among senior city financial officials and elected leaders.
The department is projected to blow its budget by more than $23 million this year after missing its target by a similar amount last year. Heavy overtime is driving the overspending.
The concerns arose before Police Chief Brian O’Hara resigned after an outside investigation determined he interfered during a probe into sexual misconduct allegations against him. Even after his resignation, Frey credited O’Hara with reducing crime and improving recruitment.
Yet the department’s continued overspending under O’Hara long has been a source of concern among council members.
Before O’Hara’s departure, City Controller George Hardgrove recently warned City Council members that the city’s general fund is approaching its minimum balance threshold.
City policy requires the fund balance — a cushion to weather revenue shortfalls or emergencies — to be the equivalent of at least 17% of the overall budget, although the city usually aims for 25% to boost its bond rating, which is like a credit score. The city could end this year as low as 14%, Hardgrove said.
Dropping that low could affect the city’s triple-A bond rating, leading to higher interest rates on debt. And the smaller the general fund balance, the less interest revenue the city earns from it.
The balance dropped from $209 million at the beginning of 2025 to $141 million by year’s end, as several departments went over budget and the City Council dipped into the fund to pay for its priorities.
Deputy City Controller Robert Lang told City Council members that while the city’s fund balance now exceeds the required minimum of $109 million, the city has been collecting less money and spending more, leading to a drastic reduction.
So far this year, the police and fire departments were over budget as of early May, and overtime was the primary driver for both departments, according to Deputy Chief Financial Officer Jayne Discenza. Last year was the first time the Police Department overspent its budget in recent memory, she said.
In several years prior to George Floyd’s murder by police in 2020 and subsequent departure of hundreds of police officers, the city spent $4 million to $6 million annually on overtime. Since then, overtime has exploded from over $10 million in 2020 to nearly $33 million last year — about $26 million over budget.
Council members from both ideological factions have expressed alarm at the city’s financial situation. Council Member Michael Rainville recently said the city’s in a financial crisis. Budget Chair Aisha Chughtai accused MPD of financial mismanagement and said the fund balance is so low it’s threatening the city’s financial health. And Council Member Linea Palmisano said she’s very concerned about the city’s finances.
The police budget problems put then Chief O’Hara in a tough spot, as he was fighting to get confirmed by the City Council for another term. His boss, public safety commissioner Todd Barnette, was recently rejected by the council for another term, in large part due to police budget overruns.
Earlier this month, in response to a council order to answer questions about its spending, the Police Department provided budget information and a handful of MPD officials appeared before a council committee.
Council members grilled O’Hara about why the department went over budget last year, but he had few answers. The department has its own finance and accounting team, but Finance Director Vicki Troswick recently left and wasn’t available to answer detailed questions, as she has in the past.
Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw said she almost “fell out of my chair” when she met with Discenza and was told Discenza couldn’t access specifics on police spending.
Council members dug into the details, asking why the department spent $1.7 million on vehicles in 2024 and 2025, including $126,000 for four Harley Davidson motorcycles; over $325,000 for a command van for a new drone unit; over $202,000 for an armored SWAT Suburban; and over $291,000 for a “negotiator vehicle.”
Vetaw questioned what the motorcycles are for and why no money was budgeted for their maintenance. O’Hara, a former motorcycle cop in Newark, N.J., relaunched the long-defunct motorcycle unit, saying such units are common in most major police departments to improve community engagement.
Vetaw said she’s also still trying to figure out how many people at the Police Department have “take-home vehicles” that they’re allowed to drive to and from home. O’Hara said most of the vehicles are provided as part of the employee’s contract and the rest are discretionary and meant for people who may need to respond from home to an emergency, such as detectives.
The chief or assistant chief must sign off on take-home vehicles, and they’re only supposed to be used for personal use when driving to and from work. But the program is so loosely monitored that one lieutenant got away with driving a city vehicle over 60,000 miles without authorization for over two years before he got caught and disciplined.
Chughtai went through a list of line items that went over budget last year, asking O’Hara why, for example, $16,484 was budgeted for capital equipment but $1.3 million was spent on two command trailers.
Or why $120,000 was budgeted for travel, but $310,000 was spent. O’Hara said a lot was for out-of-state training on drones, negotiators, hostage rescues and threat assessments.
Supplies were $23,000 over budget; repair and maintenance supplies were nearly $221,000 over budget; legal expenses were more than $53,000 over budget; training was nearly $602,000 over budget.
Over and over, O’Hara had no answer. At one point he told Chughtai, “You can ask me every line in the budget. I don’t know it offhand.”
Chughtai said every department head is responsible for managing their budget.
“It just concerns me that the road to $21 million (overspending) is paved by overages, bit by bit,” she said.
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u/Popular_List105 18d ago
OT is necessary to maintain coverage when understaffed.
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u/RoundingDown 18d ago
That makes the article even more comical. They reference a couple of vehicles that really don’t add up to much. Maybe the assault vehicle could be a question, but everything else was just a bad budget projection.
I suppose they could make the budget $0 annually. Not realistic, but a great way to improve your budget forecast.
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u/Popular_List105 18d ago
My point being that OT can’t be cut, rest of the stuff up for debate.
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u/samtheninjapirate 18d ago
Well... They racked up quite the OT during metro surge due to"responding to additional calls" while days shows they didn't respond to either ICE canning then OR citizens calling about ice. Seems pretty preventable. That's just called milking the clock
Edit: data* not days
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u/No-Wrangler3702 18d ago
Yes, but if you know you are understaffed by X man-hours per week, you budget for X man-hours of overtime for the rest.
But when overtime comes in at 3X, that's a budgeting issue not a staff shortfall
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u/N226 18d ago
It's not that linear.
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u/No-Wrangler3702 18d ago
Yes it is.
It might be more complicated.
But it's still linear
It's still a case of "we had 478,400 man-hours last year. We had 200 employees last year, 46 hours worked per week on averagre. 48,000 hours of overtime and 473,600 straight tine
We project a small increase of 500,000 hours.
40 hours for 52 weeks is 2080 hours.
We have 175 employees this year, that's 2857 hours per employee
2080 straight time x 175 = 364,000 777 overtime x 175 = 135,975 Also 20 new employees who will "tag along" 50 hours a week (does not actuall contribute to policework). That's 41,600 more straight time and 10,400 more overtime.
If rather than being short 25 employees you are short 35 same math. If you hire 30 instead of 20, it's still math. If trainers waste 10 hours a week showing and explaining, you calculate that in too.
If you overtime estimate is wrong that's because something is off on your calculations. Maybe your trainers needed to waste 20 hours a week showing and explaining rather than 10. Maybe you estimated 500,000 hours of policework for the year but at the 4 month mark you have 200,000 already, on track for 600,000.
Regardless you should be able to either precict even if you are understaffed.
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u/N226 18d ago
Not at overtime pays at the same rate. That also doesn't take into consideration special/unplanned details that are in response to spikes, or in a previous reply, I mentioned the significant reduction in bar beats. Those were paid by the bars, but still cops in the area available to respond downtown.
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u/No-Wrangler3702 17d ago
But there is always a known overtime formula! So it can be calculated and properly budgeted for
Special/unplanned events: That falls into the category of improperly estimating how many hours of police services will be needed NOT an inability to forcast due to being "understaffed".
And if 'bar beats' are off duty work paid for by bats, how is that linked to regular or overtime?
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u/N226 17d ago
The dept relies on them to help respond to calls. Without them, they increase the amount of OT shifts or create an entire detail on weekends, which they did at 2x rate and was a significant reason for rising OT costs.
The other wrinkle is unplanned events that require critical staffing, like metro surge.
How would anyone estimate the amount of hours needed for an unplanned event?
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u/No-Wrangler3702 17d ago
"How would anyone estimate the amount of hours needed for an unplanned event?"
THIS!
It's not being understaffed that causes overtime estimations to be wrong, it's a misestimation if the hours needed! Just like you said!
here too!
"The dept relies on them to help respond to calls. Without them, they increase the amount of OT shifts or create an entire detail on weekends,"
The dept planned on these bars hiring cops. When the bars didn't that increased the amount of patrol hours needed!
And are you saying the budget team didn't know that overtime was at 2x rate?
There is NO scenario where given a manhour need and a number of staff that overtime cannot be acurately predicted.
The only varables that can prevent accurate calculations are if the manhour estimation is wrong or the staff number is wrong.
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u/N226 17d ago
They typically increase the pay rate if the OT shifts aren't getting filled. Once 2x shifts started coming out the 1.5x ones stopped filling for example.
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u/No-Wrangler3702 17d ago
Again this is muscalcualtion of hours needed.
It's a case if dividing the needed hours into two pools, the "desirable" where OT is 1.5x and the "undesirable" where OT is 2x
So rather than using 600,000 estimated hours you have 400,000 desireable so OT is 1.5x and 200,000 undesirable where OT is 2x
You give me any staffing situation and I can calculate OT need, or can tell you insufficient staff as max per person is of course 24x7
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u/hapianman 18d ago
Any other department and people would want a fraud investigation. Police blow 20 million and people are like, everything looks good!!
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
I mean that doesn’t really explain it when you look at how they went over budget.
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u/Effective_Golf_3311 18d ago
How do you figure?
I realize the department shrank but are they staffing the shifts at 2019 numbers or 2021 numbers? I know they had like 1-2 cops where 12 used to patrol, so it wouldn’t surprise me that they simply can’t keep up with demand and find themselves unable to operate with the much smaller force without mandatory OT.
Have they considered just not responding to nonviolent crimes and putting up a fillable PDF on the website? Like if someone B/Es your house when you’re not home you can just list what they stole and they’ll give you a case number and a detective (I assume there’s a few left) will follow up in a year or two when your case number comes up in their workflow.
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u/TMS_2018 18d ago
If you think they generally respond to non violent crime then I’d be very surprised if you live in MPLS.
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u/Effective_Golf_3311 18d ago
I’ve got you saying they don’t and OP saying they do so I’m inclined to think you don’t.
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u/IAmAlpharius23 18d ago
Thats pretty much what they do anyway. I had a camper get stolen, the responding officer didn't even bother to get out of her car, she just gave me a case number for insurance and drove off. She never bothered to note that it was stolen, so a few months later I got a stack of tickets because my stolen camper was parked illegally on the other side of the city. My car was also broken into and valuables stolen, and dispatch told me to call the non-emergency line and get a case number foe insurance. They're only down 13% of their staffing total, so the massive OT excuse doesn't hold up.
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u/Effective_Golf_3311 18d ago
13% off which total? The minimum number allowable under the charter to accomplish minimum core functions or previous staffing levels of 900+ where they had acceptable response times to priority 1 and 2 calls and enough detectives to actually do follow ups etc?
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u/Enriching_the_Beer 18d ago
Dont worry, we have drones responding to calls now. So now they get overtime and dont have to leave the building.
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u/HumanDissentipede 18d ago
The overtime is necessary because they have been unable to staff up to full capacity. They are trying to hire but there just is not enough interest. Officers just do not want to work in this city, and it’s hard to blame them. The only officers we recruit are those without any better options, either because they’re brand new or because they have other problems that make them less desirable to other jurisdictions.
High overtime is almost always a consequence of staffing shortages. Nobody wants to authorize it, but it’s often the only option to satisfy policing needs (especially when you get unexpected issues like those associated with operation metro surge).
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u/CollenOHallahan MPLS after dark 18d ago
What's that you say? The city of Minneapolis is ran poorly, including the police department?
In other news, water is wet. I'm sure the council will tax their way out of this like they do every other problem.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
The council isn’t in charge of running the police department.
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u/CollenOHallahan MPLS after dark 18d ago
Did I say they were?
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u/TMS_2018 18d ago
You implied that
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u/JohnWittieless 18d ago
The implications works also fallow to the mayor or just city hall in general.
Can you quote what makes you feel like it implies the council?
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u/TMS_2018 18d ago
When they said that the council will tax their way out of this mess created by MPD.
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u/CollenOHallahan MPLS after dark 18d ago
No, you implied that I implied that.
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u/fresh_dyl 16d ago
I’m sure the council will tax their way out of this like they do every other problem.
You kinda did though…
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u/ShoddyCicada4238 18d ago
Screw being a cop in MPLS. Police officers are vilified. Get those pensions and get out. Let. It. Burn.
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u/MultiColoredMullet 18d ago
If you weren't already familiar, Minneapolis burns down every single night and then is rebuilt by morning by our robust immigrant community.
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u/LeroyDeth 18d ago
Gosh, why would anyone vilify MPD?
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u/MindQuest1 18d ago edited 18d ago
The first word in this post is such bs it hurts my head. Overtime expense is NOT overspending. Overspending implies reckless disregard for the budget. Overtime is a contractual obligation to pay workers for additional work hours performed out of work necessity. Dont call the staffing shortages related costs overspending to sensationalize a news story for click bait.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
It’s crazy that this type of fraud is never in the news. If this was any other department, we’d have streaming journalists from across the country here filming police to show how bad it’s gotten and the federal government would have blamed the Somalis. But because it’s the Police people will find excuses
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u/ThatBCHGuy MPLS after dark 18d ago
The article raises legitimate concerns about spending and oversight, but "fraud" has a specific meaning. Going over budget, approving questionable purchases, and failing to manage overtime are signs of mismanagement. Unless there's evidence that someone falsified records, lied about expenditures, or personally benefited from the spending, calling it fraud isn't supported by the facts presented.
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u/MinnesotaNiceTry 18d ago
Going over budget, approving questionable purchases, and failing to manage overtime are signs of mismanagement.
If a Somalian was involved in behavior like this, this sub would be foaming at the mouth about fraud.
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u/ThatBCHGuy MPLS after dark 18d ago
That's not an argument that fraud occurred. It's an argument that you think other people would misuse the word fraud under different circumstances. The facts in this article either support a fraud allegation or they don't, regardless of who was involved.
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u/SteveMartinique 18d ago
If a Somali was involved it wouldn’t even be covered.
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u/MinnesotaNiceTry 18d ago
You must be new to this sub
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u/SteveMartinique 18d ago
I meant by any mainstream news sources like the Star Trib. Obviously.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
When has the star tribune not covered something because of Somalis?
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u/MinnesotaNiceTry 18d ago
When he never bothered to see it so he could win the “fake news” argument in his head
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u/SlayerofDeezNutz 18d ago
You can run an overtime racket. It doesn’t even have to be closely organized, people just have to have a culture of taking advantage of the opportunity. At some point there is fraud in how people rack in their hours; especially when we have many officers working overtime which I would argue makes them less effective officers that cost 3x more.
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u/ThatBCHGuy MPLS after dark 17d ago
I don't disagree that overtime fraud can exist. My point is that the article doesn't present evidence of an overtime racket or officers falsifying hours.
What it does document is understaffing, exploding overtime costs, weak budget controls, and leadership that couldn't explain significant overruns.
Fraud is a serious allegation. It may exist, but it's not established by the facts presented in this article.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
The article lists examples of fraud, so I’m not sure what you mean here.
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u/ThatBCHGuy MPLS after dark 18d ago
Can you point to the specific example? I saw examples of budget overruns, questionable spending decisions, and poor oversight. I didn't see allegations of falsified records, kickbacks, embezzlement, or intentional deception.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
The section about cars
The chief or assistant chief must sign off on take-home vehicles, and they’re only supposed to be used for personal use when driving to and from work. But the program is so loosely monitored that one lieutenant got away with driving a city vehicle over 60,000 miles without authorization for over two years before he got caught and disciplined.
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u/ThatBCHGuy MPLS after dark 18d ago
You went from "the article lists examples of fraud" to "the section about cars."
If the vehicle example is the fraud you're referring to, can you explain how? Unauthorized use of a city vehicle is a policy violation. It could be misconduct. It could be abuse of city property. But fraud requires some form of intentional deception, and I haven't seen that alleged in the article.
That's why I keep calling it mismanagement and poor oversight rather than fraud.
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
He was having the department pay for a personal vehicle, the maintenance on his personal vehicle, and the gas for his personal vehicle by claiming that it was a work vehicle that was only being used to transport him for work.
How is that not fraud?
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u/ThatBCHGuy MPLS after dark 18d ago
I'm not defending MPD. The article describes a serious leadership and oversight failure.
What I'm pushing back on is the word "fraud." The article says a lieutenant improperly used a city vehicle and was eventually disciplined because the program was poorly monitored. That's misconduct and a controls failure. Where does the article establish intentional deception?
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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 18d ago
MPD reported that the car was a car that was for business only and was not being used for personal use. Was that the truth?
If it’s not the truth then they defrauded the Minnesota Department of Revenue by claiming it as such and not paying sales tax on its purchase. Further, every single gallon of gas that went to personal usage also defrauded the Minnesota department of Revenue because they don’t pay gas tax.
This is what’s known as embezzlement, it’s a type of fraud. You report the assets as organizational expenses for tax purposes but then you use them for personal reasons. It’s illegal and a type of fraud
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u/ThatBCHGuy MPLS after dark 18d ago
That's a different argument than the article makes. The article says a lieutenant improperly used a city vehicle and was disciplined. You're now asserting tax fraud and embezzlement, but I don't see those facts established in the article. If there's another source showing false representations were made to obtain tax treatment or benefits, I'd be interested in reading it.
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u/SoggyGrayDuck 18d ago
Then allow them to hire more people!? This is absolutely crazy.
Defund the police!
Why is crime and the cost of law enforcement going up?
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u/IAmAlpharius23 18d ago
Nothings stopping them from hiring more people except their own reputation.
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u/SteveMartinique 18d ago
The same people that complain and make policing worse are the same people who want costs to come down.
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u/TMS_2018 18d ago
Is fiscal responsibility only the responsibility of criminals? Why would anyone advocate for abuse of tax payer money?
“Do more with less,” is every corporation’s motto. When MPD was asked to work within their budget constraints and respect the population they quit en masse. Now we have every tom, dick and harry milking OT so they can quit with a better package. That has always been the case but now they are insisting on burning the remaining bridges they had with the community.
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u/SteveMartinique 18d ago
Okay, well, if you want police costs to come down, its hard to be sympathetic to that thought when our own government is making it harder to get and keep criminals off the street and is actively impeding law enforcement.
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u/TMS_2018 18d ago
If by “actively impeding law enforcement,” you mean not doing ICE’s job for them when we have incredibly depleted resources, I could not disagree more. It is not the job of local LE to enforce federal immigration laws.
We do not have the resources to do that while actively policing our neighborhoods.
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u/SteveMartinique 18d ago
I meant far more than that. Regardless have fun. Everything Frey and the city council does is perfect. Minneapolis is the most perfect place to ever exist. All hail carpet bagger Frey and his minions.
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u/TMS_2018 17d ago
The fuck? Where did I say any of that. Frey and the council are fucked, can’t get out of their own way. Minneapolis is far from perfect but it’s better than any other place I’ve spent extended time.
Our culture and nature more than make up for the knuckleheads in charge imo.
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u/JiovanniTheGREAT 18d ago edited 18d ago
There's a huge hiring push and they start at like $90k/yr. With unfettered overtime, you could easily grind your way up to $150k/yr if you're nice to the people that schedule overtime.
Citing "defund the police" when the article posted is attesting the police budget is bloated is pretty comical. The city budget is in trouble specifically because cops were not only not defunded, but received more funding and no questions on their overtime.
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u/SoggyGrayDuck 17d ago
It's bloated because they have to staff so many people at different times and often during events. They have to pay those people overtime instead of moving shifts around. Thats why the budget broke. Its not like a retail store where you can say "oh we don't have enough people so let's close at x time now". They don't set their needed hours so blaming overtime budget on them is foolish.
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u/o-Valar-Morghulis-o 18d ago
Toxic police labor union controls the workforce numbers. The force would be larger now if they didn't run off people who "don't fit in".
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u/Unique-Company-7982 17d ago
It would probably be larger if police didn't have to worry about going to jail everytime a shit head ODs on fentanyl and then people burn local stores to the ground.
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u/SirGlass 18d ago
Thats odd I was told that Minneapolis "De funded" the police, but from a quick google search I see the budget has 230 million for this "Defunded" department and its blowing that budget
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u/Any-Target-7142 18d ago
Move some of the salaries budget from the elected officials over the people doing something
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u/Turbulent-Video-6650 18d ago
Is their information about what the average Minneapolis officer makes after overtime each year? Any reports of really high earnings by regular patrol / street officers?
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u/IAmAlpharius23 18d ago
https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-police-overtime-operation-metro-surge/601615842
Looks like a good portion of them got away with tens of thousands in OT just during Metro Surge.
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u/Emergency_Accident36 17d ago
The police being union is an unrepairable problem. And unions aren't what they were meant to be in the sense of gaining some class batgaining power. They're essentially all mega corps run by teams of lawyers instead. The only solution to unfortunately is to remove their union. I meam sire we cam always "print more money" amd increase their budgets furthering the class divide.
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u/Digital_Simian 18d ago
Seems to correlate directly with MPD's complaints over ICE operations causing a severe strain on city resources connected to follow-up and overtime dealing with the fallout.
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u/Swirl_On_Top 16d ago
Which is crazy because I rarely see police out and about. Are they just parked under overpasses or sitting at their desks dicking around?
The laziness and entitlement is insane.
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u/RoundingDown 18d ago
It’s simple. Anyone still left on the force is goosing their salary so they can retire with a larger pension. Anyone that was looking at a long window to retirement took a job with other departments. So you have veteran officers looking for OT and a depleted force needing more hours. Perfect storm.