Mayor: Spending may lead to tax increase in next budget season
Kyle — In a discussion of Proposition F — a measure approved by voters regarding a police oversight committee — city of Kyle Mayor Travis Mitchell showed a presentation on Tuesday, March 7 regarding the police department budget, analyzing spending habits and an increasing trend of overtime pay in an effort to emphasize the need for transparency.
While city council was at an impasse regarding what such a committee should look like and how it would function, Mitchell said, “Proposition F is all about transparency. In my opinion, it should be transparency in data reporting. The only way to have confidence is through transparent reporting.”
According to the budgets of fiscal years 2016-23, KPD spending on overtime has increased by 156.24% based on projections with year-to-date data (Feb. 28) for an estimated total of $441,700; however, the budget for overtime has only increased from $75,000 to $91,500 for fiscal year 202223.
“Over the years, the overtime has increased like clockwork,” Mitchell said, noting that the increase in overtime spending can be expected when looking at past data.
Budget versus overtime spending from fiscal years 2016-17 to 2022-23 includes the following data:
• FY 2016-17: Budget - $75,000; Actual Incurred - $172,378
• FY 2017-18: Budget - $75,000; Actual Incurred - $208,232
• FY 2018-19: Budget - $75,000; Actual Incurred - $242,543
• FY 2019-20: Budget - $75,000; Actual Incurred - $271,448
• FY 2020-21: Budget $75,000; Actual Incurred - $350,171
• FY 2021-22: Budget $75,000; Actual Incurred - $376,857
• FY 2022-23 (YTD – Feb. 28, 2023): Budget $91,500; Actual Incurred $184,042; Estimated – $441,700
“The first four years [of my tenure], I didn’t have much to complain about because our PD budget wasn’t increasing at such a high rate,” the mayor said. “It’s only been the last three years really that the numbers have increased dramatically.”
The reason for this spending increase, according to KPD Chief Jeff Barnett, stems mainly from participation in the regional SWAT team, court attendance and training, as well as emergency callouts, minimum staffing requirements and operation-related activities. He added that overtime “is absolutely prevalent” in law enforcement.
“Law enforcement is the most demanding training environment because we ask police officers to be highly trained in the widest array of expertise,” Barnett said. “We’ve had court more so now in the last decade than ever before. Every police officer and, oftentimes, dispatchers or whatever staff member was involved in [a] call now gets subpoenaed to court, which is different than beyond 10 years ago … I think people are maybe a little more apt to utilize the full court system as well.”
One example of an operational reason for overtime is when an officer has had a busy day and has taken five reports without the chance to complete the reports at the station due to steady callouts.
“But here it is, 6 p.m. in the evening and you have five reports you need to finish,” Barnett explained. “There’s a dilemma of, ‘Do I go home or do I stay and complete these reports, which will take me until 11 p.m. tonight, requiring five hours of overtime?’” In another example, an officer may receive a call at 5:30 p.m. for an accident on the interstate and responds because the next shift isn’t scheduled until 6 p.m. The officer will remain on the scene despite it being a new shift, which is currently responding to active calls. That officer may be there for five hours, Barnett added.
However, the main reason for overtime, the chief cited, is due to the KPD’s involvement in the regional SWAT team, which is comprised of Hays County Sheriff’s Department, Buda Police Department, Texas State University Police Department, San Marcos Police Department and Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office. Currently, three officers are involved in the team and their hours “ebb and flow,” he said.
Mitchell believes that understaffing and overbudgeting are to blame.
In 2016, KPD had the lowest-paid officers in the region, with poor facilities and lack of equipment, according to the mayor.
“We set on the course as a council to try to fix that and be more competitive in the region so that we can attract and retain some of the best talent in the area,” he said. “Then, 2020 came and we put forward Prop F, but also Prop A, which was the Public Safety Center.”
Mitchell points to a pay increase and the establishment of the new Public Safety Center as reasons why KPD currently has an advantage in a competitive market and a high retention rate.
Barnett said, “So our retention rates have been outstanding. We have been able to keep very good police officers. I think they enjoy working here. They enjoy the culture of the agency and of the city. They enjoy the support of the citizens, the city council and city leadership. They’re very excited about the new police facility, which we’re very thankful for. The equipment in the last 12 years has improved a lot, meaning they have good cars, they have good equipment to wear and use on a daily basis. So, I think we’re very competitive.”
However, there are still open positions at KPD. The chief alluded to a staffing issue in law enforcement as a whole.
“I think it’s a wild game, but number one … a lot of the incoming workforce does not want to work nights and weekends and holidays. They want to work Monday through Friday, work from home as much as possible and unfortunately, our career does not allow us to work from home, so those are probably the biggest challenges — a change in the workforce,” he said. “Number two, the job is very challenging and demanding, not only in what you see and hear and do, but a lot of people don’t want to be exposed to death and horrific crime scenes and such. Second to that, they don’t want to be scrutinized in the way that our current society scrutinizes every action from the scene all the way to the courtroom … they don’t want to be in that position to live that stressful life. It’s very, very stressful.”
In order to fund the increase in overtime spending, KPD has turned to cost savings — utilizing funds budgeted for other items within the police department’s budget, namely fulltime equivalent (FTE) positions that are not filled.
The amount of cost savings used to balance the budget over the years includes the following:
• FY 2016-17: $97,378
• FY 2017-18: $133,232
• FY 2018-19: $167,543
• FY 2019-2020: $196,448
• FY 2020-21: $275,171
• FY 2021-22: $301,957
“The way that overtime is being paid for is through the salaries of officer positions that were funded in the budget, but not paid out because the position had yet [to be filled],” Mitchell said. “So, we’re taking that money, we’re creating FTEs and we know that the FTEs are not going to be filled because of the training that [is] required and then we’re using that budgeted savings to backfill salary or overtime to our officers very intentionally. Here’s a situation where the police [are] coming to the city council, saying, ‘We need money for these officer positions’ and they’re taking the money that we’re giving to them to increase their force and giving it to themselves in the form of overtime.”
The mayor suspects that in a way, it’s an unsaid pay bump that is currently “constructed to allow them to spend as much overtime as they want.”
The chief of police disagreed.
“We don’t particularly ask them to fund it [overtime] that way. They can fund it how they want,” Barnett said, noting that the budget is completely set by council and not the police department. “That goes through the budgeting process involving the finance department, the city manager and council.”
In the past, city council had been allowed to create a position without necessarily funding it as a solution to the issue of overtime spending.
“If we’re going to create new positions and we know we’re not going to fill that, we will create the position, but not the funding,” Mitchell said, noting that there is potential liability in that solution to how overtime spending is budgeted. “The funding will lag. We will know that there’s a liability to the following: they fill the position, but we’re not going to fund it this year … we’re creating a liability for ourselves by doing that without funding it because the next year, the bill will come to you; we’ll have to find it. We won’t have a choice.”
However, he added, that is no longer an option. Positions must be funded upfront.
“[We want to] fund [overtime] transparently and conservatively to have a conservative approach. [Council] has taken the savings [from FTEs] and used it to offset the cost … of taking that money and applying it to overtime,” Mitchell said. “Not properly budgeting overtime is where the transparency argument gets lost … It’s not transparent if, in order to get the information, I have to know the right questions to ask. And then what, post it on Facebook? How do the people have confidence in the police department? That the way we’re spending our resources is effective. The only way to have that confidence is through transparent reporting.”
He pointed to an outdated set of performance metrics, which “do not reflect the full scope of services provided by the police department,” the mayor said. “We need data reporting that will capture as much of the truth in policing as possible. And we don’t have it.”
The reason he presented it to council during the regularly scheduled meeting last Tuesday was an effort to make other members aware of the rising costs of overtime.
“I had concerns that the council might not be aware of all these things that were occurring … There’s overtime here that hasn’t been accounted for, so I was just putting it on display for everybody to see,” Mitchell said, expressing the need for awareness regarding spending due to the possibility of a tax increase. “Now, we’re going to go into the budget season a little more cleareyed about the nature of our spending … the bill comes due and it’s going to come due this budget season in the form of a tax increase for the first time.”
A workshop with the police department and local law enforcement association is currently being planned prior to the budget season, which ranges from May to September before the budget is adopted and implemented on Oct. 1.
This is a developing story. The Hays Free Press is continuing to monitor this situation and will update the public as more information becomes available.
