Employee tracking of East Haven, CT police shows 700+ overtime shifts
Police officers in East Haven, Conn. accumulated more than $600,000 in overtime pay since July 1.
In the three-month span from August through October the department tallied 777 overtime shifts, according to The New Haven Register.
Brent Larrabee, East Haven's police chief, told the Register that major reasons for overtime accrual were injuries and illness, unfilled positions in the department and officers still training to become full department members. One of Larrabee's strategies for mitigating future overtime pay is hiring civilian dispatchers and putting current dispatch officers on patrol.
"The last three departments I've been at has them," Larrabee said at a town council meeting covered by The Register. "It's the national model now, to have more police officers on the street."
Although some overtime is usually welcome, local Police Union President Bob Nappe told NBC Connecticut that the amount of required employee attendance is too much and the union would prefer to hire more officers. He cited the current 16-hour workdays for officers and said the amount of work is wearing them out and cutting into their home lives.
East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. has offered to hire additional officers in the short term as well as civilian dispatchers, according to NBC Connecticut.
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