Florida police departments restructure to cut overtime
The police departments of two Florida cities have restructured patrol shift staffing and rotation in order to reduce overtime costs, according to Florida Today. No officers were laid off in the east Florida communities of Cocoa and Titusville, and officials say that public safety will not be compromised.
"If you can save the taxpayer money and still provide the same quality of service, that's the way business is supposed to operate," Oliver Muhammad, president of the Concerned Citizens Association in Cocoa, told the news source.
Cocoa, which has a population of approximately 17,000, typically uses $200,000 of its $8 million annual budget for overtime, and Titus - a larger city of about 44,000 residents - has budgeted $615,000 for overtime this year. Cocoa has revised its minimum staffing policy to allow four rather than five officers to work shifts between 3 a.m. and 3 p.m., while Titus has added a fifth eight-hour shift to its rotation.
In response to budget cuts, the judicial system in New York implemented a different strategy for decreasing overtime - courtrooms will now be shut down at 4:30 p.m. instead of five, according to The New York Times.
"If you can save the taxpayer money and still provide the same quality of service, that's the way business is supposed to operate," Oliver Muhammad, president of the Concerned Citizens Association in Cocoa, told the news source.
Cocoa, which has a population of approximately 17,000, typically uses $200,000 of its $8 million annual budget for overtime, and Titus - a larger city of about 44,000 residents - has budgeted $615,000 for overtime this year. Cocoa has revised its minimum staffing policy to allow four rather than five officers to work shifts between 3 a.m. and 3 p.m., while Titus has added a fifth eight-hour shift to its rotation.
In response to budget cuts, the judicial system in New York implemented a different strategy for decreasing overtime - courtrooms will now be shut down at 4:30 p.m. instead of five, according to The New York Times.
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