OAKLAND — Many City of Oakland departments have recently cut budgets, but the Oakland Police Dept. “has come in $51 million over budget” because the “current contract with the OPOA (Oakland Peace Officer Assoc.) is one-sided and costs us millions,” charged the Anti Police-Terror Project.
The APTP said this past week, “Oakland’s City Auditors in 2015,2019, and again in 2024, show there are discrete overtime and compensation time provisions and practices in the Oakland Peace Officer Association MOU that lead directly to unwarranted overtime costs.”
Such provisions, APTP added, explain how “many officers take home double or even triple their salary after overtime.”
Quoting from the “Transparent California, California’s largest public pay database,” the APTP said the OPD paid lieutenants $378,000 average total pay, sergeants $300,000 average total pay, and officers $216,000 average total pay in 2023.
For example, APTP listed: “Timothy Dolan (Sgt): $158,000 base pay + $371,000 overtime pay, Scott Bezner (Lt): $183,000 base pay + $264,000 overtime pay, and Hector Jimenez: $136,000 base pay + $307,000 overtime pay.”
With these totals, the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) said, “Oakland is among the top .05 percent of (police) departments nationwide in terms of total pay for sworn officers in 2023,” costing “taxpayers $879,283.72 in total pay and benefits,” adding the costs are only increasing after “OPOA received a half decade of consecutive raises under past and current MOUs, with another raise due next year.”
James Burch, deputy director of the Anti Police-Terror Project, said, “We warned in 2016 that policing costs would place our city in financial jeopardy, and the failure to take our warnings seriously has resulted in proposed cuts to vital programs that keep our communities safe.”
He added, “We need to address the fact that our police budget is not financially feasible and will not be at any time in the foreseeable future.”
