Board committee cuts mayor’s police reserve draw, mandates neighborhood biweekly reporting amid fierce debate over overtime

The San Francisco Police Department asked the Budget & Appropriations Committee on March 15 for a supplemental appropriation to cover projected overtime expenses, initially requesting a roughly $27.6 million draw on the general‑fund reserve. Chief Bill Scott and Assistant Chief David Lazar told the committee the department is operating with significantly fewer sworn officers than earlier this decade, and that overtime is being used to backfill patrol cars, staff downtown 'safe‑shopper' and tourism deployments, cover large public events and support violence‑reduction work.

Assistant Chief Lazar outlined station‑by‑station shortfalls and said the department’s 2021 staffing analysis recommended approximately 2,182 officers for full coverage; he said patrol backfill alone represents a large share of projected overtime. “Priority (in‑progress) response is now 8.8 [minutes], which is extremely high,” Lazar said in the hearing.

The Budget & Legislative Analyst (BLA) presented a review showing the department’s headcount down roughly 16% since 2019 while certain workload measures also fell; BLA estimated nearly 489,000 projected overtime hours in FY23 and reported that about 190,000 of those hours are for backfilling patrol, 100,000 for safe‑shopper deployments and 40,000 for tourism deployments. The BLA recommended that the Board require analysis of whether new overtime programs are cost‑effective and examine internal reassignments or unspent funds before committing large supplemental amounts.

Supervisors pressed the department for neighborhood equity, noting that overtime hours have concentrated in the Central/Union Square district and asking why Mission, Bayview and other neighborhood stations have not received comparable resources. Supervisor Hillary Ronan and others pressed for stronger reporting and direct deployment commitments to neighborhood stations. The mayor’s budget team offered internal offsets of approximately $2.27 million (unspent equipment funds, contract timing savings and small balances) to reduce the draw on the general reserve.

Actions taken: The committee approved amendments that reallocated the $2.27 million of internal SFPD savings toward overtime and reduced the draw on the general reserve to about $25.37M, and it adopted a motion requiring the Police Department to report biweekly to the Board on full‑duty officer levels and overtime use broken down by neighborhood. The committee then forwarded items 2–6 to the full Board without recommendation for final action.

What to watch: Supervisors signaled they will continue to scrutinize how overtime dollars are allocated across neighborhoods and asked for further analysis of whether overtime is the most cost‑effective way to deliver desired public‑safety outcomes. The biweekly reporting requirement should provide the Board a near‑real‑time view of how supplemental funds are spent.