If you're a victim of crime in Fort Lauderdale, better hope it's not when the closest officer is clocking out.
The city wants to slash officers' overtime pay -- two-and-a-half hourly pay -- to spend closer to $2 million rather than the $6.1 million this year, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
City records showed 51 officers made more than $25,000 in overtime last year, plus overtime sums like $50,000, $60,000 and, in one case, $70,000 in a single year. One officer made more in overtime than he did in salary.
A hard number to justify considering half the households in Broward lived on less than $64,000 last year.
"I feel that myself and the detectives that work with me put a lot of career criminals in prison for years to come, and there is real value in that," said Sgt. Jerry Fuller, who earned $66,633 in overtime pay last year in addition to his $82,389 salary.
Sgt. Jack Lokeinsky, president of the Fraternal Order of Police union in Fort Lauderdale, said one of the reasons for so much overtime pay is because it's hard to retain officers.
"If the city comes up with a way to stop the revolving door at the department, then we wouldn't have the vacancies in patrol that we have," Lokeinsky said.
If and when the city figures out how to do so, however, doesn't stop the current problem of having to issue the force an emergency cash infusion of $1.4 million -- half of what Police Chief Frank Adderley requested - after the already-allotted $3.3 million for overtime ran out.
But Commissioner Bobby DuBose is looking on the bright side.
"We're just blessed that we're not firing our police officers, we're just asking them to hey, buy into this whole city concept and tighten our belts and look at some other alternatives."
