Kent Police overtime costs jump to $4.1 million in 2024

The Kent Police Department spent $4.1 million in overtime pay in 2024, 28% higher than the $3.2 million spent in each of 2023 and 2022, and a whopping 58% higher than the $2.6 million spent in 2021.

“There’s a lot of reasons, not the least of which is ongoing contract increases, cost-of-living increases and negotiations between the (police) union and city,” Kent Police Chief Rafael Padilla said about the huge jump in overtime during a recent interview at the Kent Police Station conference room.

Padilla said with higher annual salaries, when an officer works overtime paid at time and one-half, the overtime goes up to a higher rate of pay.

“Chalk it up to costs,” Padilla said.

Those costs include two officers who made more than $10o,000 in overtime in 2024, according to a Kent Reporter public records request. Three others made more than $67,000 in overtime pay.

The chief said the lack of enough officers for a city the size of Kent (140,400 people) contributes to overtime costs. Although staffed to budget with 170 officers, Padilla said he needs another 35 officers for a higher level of service.

“My argument is there’s not enough staffing,” Padilla said. “It generates a need to have overtime. When you’re lean and someone goes out on leave, or an officer is injured and recovering, out on training or whenever they don’t come to work, you have to backfill the position.

“We have to have minimum safety, we need certain numbers on patrol and we don’t want to fall behind. If we fall behind, we go to overtime.

“It’s not uncommon to have upwards of 25% staff out at a given time.”

Kent City Councilmember Bill Boyce, who oversees public safety, agreed with Padilla about the lack of staffing leading to more overtime.

“Kent is a very large city, number six (in the state) and covers a lot of square miles (34),” Boyce said during a phone interview about increasing police overtime costs. “You look at national data and we should be at 200-plus officers (rather than 170) for a city our size. For us to make sure the city is safe, and due to being understaffed, we call on our police officers to do more and extra work.”

Council President Satwinder Kaur said the community wants a strong police force.

“Over the years, we have heard from the community that public safety and police staffing is the number one priority for the city,” Kaur said in an email in response to higher police overtime costs.

Kaur said state requirements have led to officers working more hours.

“Over the past four years, state law changes have required more officers to respond together on calls, as well as additional officer duties, training and record-keeping,” Kaur said.

Other reasons for OT

Padilla, who became chief in 2018, explained additional reasons for overtime increases.

“If an officer is scheduled to get off at 8 p.m. and a homicide comes in at 7:50 p.m., they don’t get to go home,” Padilla said. “The officer must finish out their work, and it could be five to six additional hours.”

Kent Police allow officers to take their work vehicles home, so if an officer is driving to work and a call comes in, they can self deploy to the call, which could trigger another 20 minutes of overtime. If an officer is off duty and gets called in on a court case, that is overtime. And with more officers on the force, there are more arrests and more court cases.

Special events in town require police presence, including annual events such as Kent Cornucopia Days, the Fourth of July Splash and the Khalsa Day Parade. To keep minimum staffing for street patrols, extra officers are pulled in for overtime to work the festivals or celebrations.

“You might think more officers equals less overtime, but that’s not necessarily true,” Padilla said about his staff of 170 police officers.

Part of that is because an officer can take 12 weeks leave if they are having a baby, which at times has meant as many as five or six officers out at a time. Police must backfill those positions.

“Younger officers are better at work/life balance,” Padilla said.

Officers work 10-hour shifts four days a week. Shifts are staggered so that more officers work the peak call time from 3 to 9 p.m. each day. An officer cannot work more than 16 hours straight without at least an eight-hour break.

The police department also oversees the city’s jail, so overtime payments are for the officers on the streets and correction officers at the jail. In the public records request for officers making more than $20,000 per year in overtime, four were corrections officers with overtime ranging from $20,000 to $44,000. Forty-eight were police officers with overtime pay ranging from $20,000 to $126,000.

Officers who serve extra duty as part of Valley SWAT (composed of several police agencies) can rack up overtime if a call goes on for a long time and when calls come in after hours when an officer is off duty.

“If a SWAT response goes six to 12 hours long, it’s more overtime,” Padilla said.

Padilla said the investigations unit is a large part of overtime.

“Detectives called in for a homicide, the work processing a homicide can take a team 10 hours,” Padilla said. “A detective and support detective assigned to a homicide can work that case initially a week or so almost nonstop. They take a break for sleep and come right back to work. It’s crucial the first few days with all that can be done, you can break the case. Our clearance rate is some of best in the country on homicides because we take that approach.”

Overtime costs can be as much as $40,000 on one case, the chief said.

Body-worn cameras on officers also leads to more overtime pay.

“A huge tasking time for officers is going through body-worn camera footage,” Padilla said. “Prior (to cameras) you would write report incidents. Now you write reports after review of the body-worn camera. It can take an hour or so to document accurately, label and tag the video.”

Kent purchased its first body-worn cameras in 2019, and added more a few years later to eventually outfit every officer with a camera.

“I get how overtime looks and to a degree we can manage and minimize,” Padilla said about the increasing costs.

But Padilla said circumstances can make it difficult to avoid overtime. For example, when an officer pulls over a driver for driving under the influence (DUI), and the driver agrees to a blood draw, the officer must take that person to an emergency room where it can take up to three hours to get a blood draw.

“Law enforcement doesn’t get to the front of the line,” he said. “If they bring someone in for a blood draw, the overtime starts if it’s past shift.”

If an officer makes a felony arrest, those offenders must be booked in either the King County jail at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent or the county jail in downtown Seattle. King County staffs the Kent facility limited hours for bookings, so officers end up driving to Seattle and back as opposed to down the road.

“Rather than 40 minutes turnaround, it can turn into three hours,” Padilla said.

Officers with high OT pay

Two police officers earned more than $100,000 in overtime in 2024, and 52 officers earned at least $20,000 in overtime, according to a Kent Reporter public records request.

The highest overtime earners were Sgt. Thomas Clark, who received $126,296 for 1,286 hours (and 167 supplemental hours) and patrol officer Roland Heyne, who received $110,599 in overtime for 1,447 hours. Clark made a base salary of $142,080 and Heyne made a base salary of $118,320. That gave Clark annual pay of $268,376 and Heyne $228,919.

Heyne, however, also made another $14,198 in extra pay above his base salary for length of service with the department, education and work on any special units, boosting his salary and overtime to $243,117. Clark received extra pay of $27,795 to put his salary and overtime at $296,571.

Each officer made more in 2024 than Kent Mayor Dana Ralph, who has an annual salary of $219,720 per year. Ralph is one of the highest paid mayors in the area, making more than the mayors of Federal Way, Auburn and Renton, according to city documents.

Heyne also was one of two officers to make more than $100,000 in overtime in 2023, according to city documents. He made $102,415 in 2023 overtime while Sgt. Tim Barbour made $119,728.

“He (Heyne) is a patrol officer and in the special operations unit,” Padilla said. “There is built-in overtime with that unit.”

But the chief said there’s more to that many hours.

“Clearly, officer Heyne volunteered for a lot of overtime,” Padilla said. “It’s one of those deals where we monitor that. One of the things we look for is a high amount of work and what we see in work performance and complaints. I will tell you, Officer Heyne does a really good job. I will not say there’s not any complaints, but it doesn’t come up on our radar as out of the norm. He’s been recognized for his work.”

Every quarter, the department tracks performance and complaints about officers.

“We have an early warning report where we look at use of force numbers, high amount of sick leave, high amount of complaints, discipline. …if it’s out of whack we address it, and monitor it,” Padilla said.

Padilla said the high overtime pay for Clark is partly due to sergeants getting paid a higher wage, so when they work extra hours the overtime pay is even higher.

Three other officers made more than $67,000 in overtime in 2024. Patrol Officer Chelsea Pribble made $84,215 in overtime, according to city documents. Patrol Officer Will Morrison made $70,314 and Sgt. Kenny Clay made $67,271. Seven other officers made more than $50,000 in overtime. Pribble had a salary of $136,068, Morrison $136,084 and Clay $164,371. Combined with overtime, Clay made $231,642, Pribble $220,283 and Morrison $206,398.

Ways to reduce OT?

Padilla said a couple of times during the interview that he wished officers didn’t have to work any overtime.

“Overtime is not ideal and I have concerns about a service model based on overtime,” he said. “If I had my way, there’d be no overtime at all.”

To keep service levels high, however, he knows that isn’t possible.

The department had officers work 12-hour shifts when it had a shortage of officers a few years ago, and that did cut down on overtime, but the longer shifts were harder on officers.

“We’ve tried things in the (union) contract,” Padilla said. “But state law makes it complicated to do anything that impacts how officers use their leave and benefits agreed to in the contract.”

The department is looking at more prudent use of sick leave.

“The current workforce is going to use all of their leave on a regular basis, which is their right,” Padilla said. “Wellness is a big issue for us, when people need time to recover or rejuvenate to find balance with their job. Mental health days are allowed under sick leave usage.”

Padilla doesn’t want overtime hours too high.

“We want officers coming in who are well and able,” he said. “Nobody wants a tired officer.”

When overtime is needed to fully staff the shift, the department seeks volunteers first. They also seek volunteers for off-duty jobs, such as traffic control, private security and the two officers needed at every accesso ShoWare Center events. Contracted services include security at local stores.

Kaur, the council president, said the city has lobbied the Legislature over the last few years for a state funding source to hire more officers, which could reduce overtime, but those efforts have been unsuccessful.

“We will work with Chief (Padilla) to evaluate opportunities to reduce overtime while providing high quality public safety services in the future,” Kaur said. “This is an administrative task that involves collective bargaining agreements, so council doesn’t have a lot of influence here.”

Councilmember Boyce said the $4.1 million in overtime last year actually costs the city less than hiring dozens of more officers.

“If I would do the math and say if we’re fully staffed, I think our budget would be a lot more than the $4.1 million we are paying in overtime,” Boyce said. “If we add 40 more officers, each at ($200,000) total compensation package (including benefits), it’d be a lot more than $4.1 million, so at the end of the day we are still saving money versus not being fully staffed.”

Forty officers hired at $200,000 per year would cost $8 million. Thirty officers at that rate would cost $6 million.

Police OT budget

The Kent City Council in December 2024 agreed to a budget adjustment that included an additional $500,000 out of the general fund to help cover police overtime costs.

The police department budgets for overtime each year, but tries to keep the estimates lower than anticipated so there’s not extra money in the budget.

In 2024, the budgeted overtime was $2.5 million. In addition to the $500,000 in extra funds, the department helps cover overtime costs with money saved from open positions, according to the city finance department.

The police department spent $3.2 million in overtime in 2023; $3.2 million in 2022; $2.6 million in 2022; $2.2 million in 2020; and $2.9 million in 2019, according to a public records request. The budgeted overtime amounts varied each year from $1.2 million to $1.9 million.

The overtime costs ranged from $1.9 million in 2014 to $2.6 million in 2018, according to city documents.

What other cities pay in OT

Renton, Auburn and Federal Way, three of Kent’s neighboring cities, paid less in police overtime in 2024 than Kent’s $4.1 million.

Renton paid $3.1 million in overtime, Auburn paid $2.3 million and Federal Way paid $2.2 million, according to public records requests and city documents.

Farther north, the city of Everett paid $1.6 million in police overtime in 2024, according to a public records request.

Elsewhere in the nation, the Scottsdale (Arizona) Police Department is having its overtime payments to police officers looked into by the Scottsdale City Council after the Scottsdale Progress reported in January 2025 an officer more than doubled her $98,696 salary with an additional $120,948 in overtime in 2024. Another officer exceeded his $91,956 salary with overtime checks totaling $103,796. Eight other officers received more than $70,000 in overtime.

The Delray Beach (Florida) Police Department is under investigation by the Inspector General’s Office for excessive overtime pay, with some officers reportedly earning more in overtime than their annual salaries, according to an April report by CBS 12 News. Figures showed one officer earning $88,539 in pay and $130,377 in overtime, another officer earning $95,738 in pay and $90,849 in overtime, and a third officer earning $89,801 in salary and $102,476 in overtime.