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San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, pictured when he was the city's police chief

A recent city services audit says the San Francisco Police Department has failed to properly monitor and control millions of dollars in overtime and premium pay.

The audit found many problems. One was that the department was not enforcing overtime limits and failed to properly document earnings and payments during a period of two years that ended right before Police Chief George Gascon took office in August 2009.

Some officers were paid without time cards. Others received money for court appearances without proof they appeared in court. Many switched around their work schedules to receive premium pay and broke rules by exceeding the number of overtime hours they were allowed to work.

The report says the problems stem in part from the department’s outdated system of keeping mostly paper records. From the report:

“As a result of this antiquated basis for documenting millions of dollars per year in time worked, records are more likely to be incomplete, poorly organized, misplaced, or lost.”

In addition, the system remains largely unchanged.

“The data that we used for this audit are not that old,” said audit manager Mark Tipton. “It would be very surprising to me that all of this ended on June 30, 2009. It’s a big org and things don’t change that quickly." 

The final report was sent August 18 to Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Board of Supervisors and Gascon.

A police spokesman declined to speak about the specifics of the report, but Sgt. Troy Dangerfield said that the system of tracking hours at the department has not changed in about 15 years.

“We’re aware of the audit, and they’re looking at it to determine whether the numbers are correct,” Dangerfield said. “Once they do all that research, they’re going to speak about it.”

It’s unclear exactly how much the department may have overpaid employees out of the $114.8 million in overtime and premium payments made between July 2007 and June 2009. Premium pay is extra pay provided to officers for certain duties and special skills (such as court appearances, knowledge of another language or K-9 handling).

To complete the study, which began in the spring of 2009, auditors interviewed key personnel, analyzed more than one million pay records, traced premium pay and overtime hours through automated payroll and manual records, and compared a sample of employees’ schedules with their payroll data.

The city’s general fund, the report says, paid for the majority of the department’s overtime – $46 million.

The report lists myriad problems. 

For example, a sample of officers found that 32 percent had claimed premium pay for appearing in court, despite problems with their time cards and other documentation, including: 

-Time cards lacked the required signatures from attorneys who subpoenaed the officers to appear in court, which serve as verification of their appearances.

-Officers' work schedules were shifted and vacation time scheduled on days they were scheduled to appear in court, allowing them to claim premium pay.

-Some officers received both overtime pay and premium pay.

While the police department has always been urged to balance its budget, the city controller’s office said nothing in particular prompted the audit. 

Tonia Lediju, director of audits, said her office recently decided to begin conducting two audits per year on pay practices at different city agencies. But this year they were only able to complete one because the police department’s records were so disorganized.

“We had hoped to be able to go in and potentially use an electronic method of reviewing records. We weren’t able to do that,” she said. “The department’s ways are antiquated. The PD took us quite a bit of time.”