Nassau County’s police commissioner objected to county Comptroller George Maragos’ charge in an audit that the police department’s overtime expenses went $96 million over-budget and nearly doubled over six years.
In his written response to the audit released Monday, Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter called one of its findings “nothing more than a work of fiction” and said auditors made selective calculations and ignored steps the department had already taken to mitigate overtime costs.
“Based on the audit, one can only conclude that the comptroller is either incompetent, biased or has a political agenda,” Krumpter wrote. “It appears the findings in the audit were pre-determined and the audit was written ignoring the facts.”
The audit said the police department under-budgeted for overtime between 2009 and 2014 while over-estimating how much initiatives such as the 2012 precinct consolidation would save.
Antiquated record-keeping systems and disparate precinct overtime rules also contributed to the problem, Maragos said.
“There was no mechanism, back to senior management, to see how well each of the precincts were doing in managing overtime, or whether they were going substantially above their overtime budget,” Maragos said in an interview.
The total of $315 million the department spent on overtime between 2009 and 2014 exceeded the amount it expected to save through workforce reductions by more than $173 million, while annual overtime spending increased 93.7 percent from $35.51 million to $68.78 million in that time, the audit said.
Auditors said the police department did not provide significant documented evidence of savings from initiatives purported to reduce overtime costs, including the 2012 precinct consolidation that was hotly debated and newly opposed on the North Shore in the past several months.
Other programs that lacked evidence of savings included the delayed hiring of new officers and changes to the department’s collective bargaining agreement with police unions near the end of Nassau County’s wage freeze in 2014, Maragos said.
“Before they take major initiatives that can affect public safety, they need to do their formal analysis and certainly present that to the public and to the county executive to demonstrate that they are worthwhile initiatives and that they will have certain consequences and results before they’re undertaken,” Maragos said.
Additionally, precinct commanders had differing overtime rules, and the police department’s record-keeping system is outdated compared to the one other county agencies use, Maragos said.
The audit recommends the police department document all assumptions of savings and actual savings from management initiatives, upgrade its management system and consult a third party to do a cost-benefit analysis of its workforce rules before it renegotiates contracts that expire in 2017.
In his response, Krumpter disputed auditors’ claims that the police department withheld documents or did not have them. Auditors were given “all the records that existed,” but asked the police department to “perform parts of the audit,” he wrote.
Maragos’ office and the county’s Office of Legislative Budget Review agreed with the police department’s 2012 projection that the four precinct mergers would each save $5 million annually, for a total of $20 million a year, Krumpter wrote.
The Fourth and Fifth Precincts were separated last year, but they saved the projected $5 million annually and the plan would have met the $20 million goal if all mergers had stayed intact, Krumpter said.
“To suggest anything else would be disingenuous and supports the department’s position that the audit is deeply flawed and has little or no value,” Krumpter wrote.
Krumpter also disputed the use of 2009 as the audit’s “baseline” year because overtime expenses were significantly lower than normal and changes to union contracts caused overtime expenses to rise $10 million annually after that, Krumpter said.
The police department reduced its total work force by 504 people between 2009 and 2014, leading to more than $524 million in overtime savings when each year’s savings are compounded, which the audit did not do, Krumpter wrote.
“The department administration has and will continue to aggressively manage all overtime,” he wrote in the response. “The department welcomes any real recommendations from the comptroller that would not endanger public safety or violate the contract,” Krumpter wrote.
Maragos said the audit was started in late 2014 as part of his office’s routine review of the police department.
Krumpter wrote that he thought it was improper that some members of the audit team were on the Civil Service Employees Association negotiating committee before the audit started.
Maragos said his office thoroughly checked the data behind auditors’ conclusions and that he stood behind the audit’s integrity.
“I was hoping and still hope that the acting commissioner look on the report positively and determine what areas would be beneficial for him to reflect on and to improve the efficiency of the department,” he said.
