Seattle Police Still Can't Reconcile Overtime, a Decade After Audit
Summary
Seattle's Police Department budgeted $55.8 million for overtime in 2026 -- 112% more than the $26.4 million it budgeted in 2022, per the City Council's own tracking. A decade earlier, the City Auditor's office found SPD's 2015 overtime spending had blown past its budget by 58% and flagged, among other gaps, that the department could not reconcile hours it paid against hours actually worked. The Auditor's own May 2026 follow-up says that specific gap is still open: the payroll system still cannot produce the reports needed to check overtime hours against pay.
The audit that named the gap
SPD's overtime overruns weren't new even in 2016. Then-Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole requested the audit herself, worried about "anomalies" in a department that had, in the auditor's own words⧉, seen overtime expenditures "almost double" over the preceding ten years. The audit found SPD had exceeded its adopted overtime budget in each of the three years it examined most closely: by 42% in 2013, 52% in 2014, and 58% in 2015, when actual spending hit $24.2 million against a $15.3 million budget. Auditors traced the overruns to six categories of weak controls -- policy, budgeting, operations, management monitoring, special-events billing, and off-duty work oversight -- and singled out one operational gap by name: SPD lacked the ability to reconcile hours it paid against hours officers actually worked, alongside gaps in overtime approvals, recording, and automated payment checks. The report's own summary states it issued 30 recommendations to close those gaps.
View data as table
| 2015 overtime budget | 15,279,823 | SPD's adopted General Fund overtime budget for 2015 |
|---|---|---|
| Actual spending | 24,192,607 | 58% over budget -- the overrun that triggered the audit |
The dollars kept climbing
A decade later, the audit's target has grown far past the number that triggered it. Central Staff's own June 2026 table shows SPD's original overtime budget rising every year since 2022: $26.4 million, then $31.3 million, then $37.7 million, then $53.1 million, then $55.8 million this year -- a $29.4 million increase Central Staff itself calls "a 112% increase." That growth alone, separate from the rest of SPD's budget, is about 4.3 times the entire 2026 budget⧉ of the Office of Police Accountability -- SPD's own civilian watchdog agency, funded at $6,844,118 this year. Central Staff attributes most of the growth to bargained raises, not runaway usage: a 24% Seattle Police Officer's Guild salary adjustment covering 2020-2023, a further 17% adjustment in the 2024-2027 contract, and a $250-per-shift premium for special-events overtime. Even so, SPD spent $55 million on overtime in 2025 -- about $1.4 million over its revised budget, some of it tied to FIFA-related events the city expects to be reimbursed for in 2026.
View data as table
| 2022 | 26,359,544 | |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 31,267,261 | |
| 2024 | 37,712,090 | |
| 2025 | 53,100,000 | |
| 2026 | 55,800,000 | up 112% ($29 million) from 2022, per Central Staff's own figure |
Ten years, still open
The Auditor's May 2026 status report⧉ tracks the 2016 overtime audit's recommendations at 32 in its recommendation-status dashboard -- 23 implemented, 7 pending, 2 closed as of December 31, 2025. (The original report's own summary stated 30 recommendations; neither document reconciles the two counts.) Among what's still pending: the reconciliation gap named a decade ago. The status report states plainly that SPD is "working on transitioning scheduling and overtime tracking from the City's Workday payroll system" to a system built for first responders, targeted for completion by September 2026 -- and that "at this time, Workday is unable to provide the reports necessary to reconcile all overtime hours on the Event Summary Forms with those recorded in the City's payroll system." The same status report shows this isn't unique to SPD: citywide, 89% of the 94 audit recommendations the Auditor's office tracked in 2025 remained pending as of year-end, with none closed.
- The 2015 overspend has grown 2.3 times over. SPD's 2026 original overtime budget, $55.8 million, is more than double the $24.2 million SPD actually spent on overtime -- overruns included -- in 2015, the year the audit's own report used as its headline overspend figure. The audit itself had been requested a year earlier, in October 2014, after a limited internal review found "anomalies" in that year's overtime spending.
- The specific gap the 2016 audit named is still open. SPD could not reconcile overtime hours paid against hours worked in 2016; the Auditor's May 2026 status report states the City's Workday payroll system still cannot generate the reports needed to do that reconciliation, with a replacement system not targeted for completion until September 2026.
- The growth outpaces the department's own watchdog. The $29.4 million SPD's overtime budget grew between 2022 and 2026 is, by itself, about 4.3 times the entire 2026 budget of the Office of Police Accountability, the civilian body that oversees SPD.
Figures are drawn from four documents read in full: the Seattle Office of City Auditor's 2016 SPD Overtime Controls Audit and its May 2026 recommendation-status follow-up, a Seattle City Council Central Staff briefing to the Public Safety Committee (June 9, 2026), and the SPD chapter of the City of Seattle's 2026 Adopted Budget. All four were fetched directly from seattle.gov or the Council's legislative information system and sealed via this outlet's own capture endpoint. Archive.org's Save Page Now service returned HTTP 520 for all four URLs and its availability API was rate-limited on the single follow-up probe attempted for each; per this outlet's standard practice, no further retries were made and each document's archiveUrl is left null. A blind adversarial verifier, working from the primary documents alone with no access to this draft, independently checked every itemized fact; see verification.json.
The 111.7% and 58.3% growth-rate checks, the 265% decade-long budget-growth figure, the 2.3x comparison between the 2026 budget and 2015 actual spending, and the 4.3x comparison against the Office of Police Accountability's budget are this outlet's own arithmetic on figures each source document already states; methods and caveats are in analysis.json. The 30-versus-32 recommendation-count discrepancy between the 2016 audit's own summary and the 2026 status report's tracking dashboard is noted rather than resolved -- this outlet could not determine from either document why the counts differ.
Sources(4) ▾
- Seattle Office of City Auditor (David G. Jones, City Auditor), Seattle Police Department Overtime Controls Audit (2016-04-11) — The primary document establishing the audit's origin and 2015 baseline: the request from then-Chief Kathleen O'Toole (p.1), the finding that SPD's overtime expenditures had almost doubled over ten years (p.1 Report Summary), the 2015 General Fund overtime actual of $24,192,607 against a budget of $15,279,823 (p.2, Background Information), the 58%/$8.9 million 2015 overspend and the 2013-2014 overspend figures (p.3, p.6), the six categories of control gaps including the explicit flag on reconciling hours paid to hours worked (p.2, 'What We Found', item 3, Overtime Operational Controls), and the report's own statement that it issued 30 recommendations (p.3). seattle.gov · original document
- Seattle Office of City Auditor (Arushi Thakorlal, Acting City Auditor), Status Report on the Implementation of City Auditor Recommendations as of December 2025 (2026-05-27) — The primary document for the current status of the 2016 audit's recommendations: the citywide summary that 89% (84 of 94) of recommendations tracked in 2025 remained pending as of December 31, 2025, with none closed (p.1), and the dedicated 'Seattle Police Department Overtime Controls Audit' entry (p.8) giving 32 recommendations issued, 23 implemented, 7 pending, 2 closed, and the direct quote that Workday still cannot produce the reports needed to reconcile overtime hours on Event Summary Forms against the payroll system, with a UKG TeleStaff replacement targeted for completion by September 2026. seattle.gov · original document
- Seattle City Council Central Staff (Greg Doss, Analyst), Public Safety Committee, Seattle Police Department (SPD) 2026 Q1 Sworn Staffing, Overtime and Performance Metrics Report (2026-06-09) — The primary document for the current overtime-budget trend: the 'SPD Overtime Monitoring' table (slide 10) giving the annual original overtime budget for 2022 through 2026 ($26,359,544 to $55,800,000), the stated $29 million / 112% growth over that span, the drivers (SPOG's 2020-2023 Interim Agreement 24% salary adjustment, the 2024-2027 CBA's 17% adjustment, and a $250-per-shift special-events overtime premium), and the statement that SPD spent $55 million on overtime in 2025, about $1.4 million over its revised budget. Also source for Q1 2026 sworn-staffing figures (slide 3) used for context. seattle.legistar.com · original document
- City of Seattle City Budget Office, Seattle Police Department chapter, City of Seattle 2026 Adopted Budget (2025-11-24) — Source for the department's total 2026 Adopted Budget appropriation ($488,586,235, p.391/402) used as scale context, the Office of Police Accountability's separate 2026 Adopted budget ($6,844,118, p.407) used as the in-context comparison for the overtime budget's growth, and the Council's own $942,529 'Reduce Overtime/Standby Pay' general-fund reduction built into the 2026 budget (p.397). seattle.gov · original document
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The Seattle Police Department's overtime budget grew from $26,359,544 in 2022 to $55,800,000 in 2026 -- a 112% increase, per a Seattle City Council Central Staff briefing⧉ presented to the Public Safety Committee on June 9, 2026. A decade before that growth began, a City Auditor performance audit⧉ found that SPD's 2015 overtime spending -- $24,192,607 -- had exceeded its $15,279,823 budget by 58%, and named, among six categories of control gaps, SPD's inability to reconcile hours it paid against hours officers actually worked. The Auditor's own May 2026 status report⧉ says that exact gap remains open: the City's Workday payroll system still cannot generate the reports needed to check overtime hours against pay.