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# City Hall overtime pay tops $13 million
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/city-hall-overtime-pay-tops-13-million/
- Published: 2004-08-19T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:52:36.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Top 25 overtime earners take home tens of thousands of dollars in extra pay*

CITY HALL — Police officers, fire-fighters and bus drivers were the top overtime earners here in 2003, taking home millions of dollars for extra hours worked and, in some cases, doubling their wages, city records show.

Topping the list was a police sergeant who took home $66,825 in extra wages, to complement his $95,493 salary. Below him were four police officers who each earned more than $50,000 last year in overtime pay.

Rounding out the list of the 25 workers with the most overtime compensation in 2003 were two firefighters, four bus drivers and many more police officers. Each of the bus drivers earned a $41,000 annual salary, plus between $36,000 and $46,000 for covering extra shifts and other additional work.

Each of the workers also received a third source of income by cashing out vacation days or other City Hall benefits. Those cash-outs ranged from $993 for one bus driver to more than $20,000 for a fire engineer.

Citing privacy reasons, city officials didn’t provide workers’ names.

City Hall spends more than $170 million on salaries, wages and fringe benefits annually and last fiscal year $13.2 million of that was for overtime, said finance director Steve Stark.

All city employees are eligible to earn overtime except those in managerial positions, like department heads. Overtime pay is typically one-and-a-half times a worker’s wage, and kicks in for long shifts and workweeks which exceed 40 hours.

Of the $13 million spent on overtime last year, 36 percent went to the police department, 34 percent to the Big Blue Bus, 16 percent to the fire department and the rest was spread between other departments, Stark said.

Officials said they are constantly striving to limit overtime expenses, but say that some of it is necessary to keep the city running.

“I think one of the main things to bear in mind is the use of overtime for seasonal or temporary work is far more cost effective for the city than hiring full-time people that have to be paid 365 days a year, plus benefits,” said Santa Monica Police Department Chief James T. Butts, Jr., who manages a team of 210 officers. “And remember that when you hire an officer, you pay not only his or her base salary, but you pay another 50 to 55 percent in benefits, medical, dental, retirement, etcetera.”

Butts said his department set up an overtime monitoring program in the late 1990s to limit overtime use, but said he doesn’t apologize for the amount used. He added the department’s first consideration is keeping Santa Monica safe.

What’s more, Butts said much of the overtime pay is funded by outside groups that hire police officers for movie shoots and other events in Santa Monica. Overtime also is used to respond to specific situations, Butts said, like when gun violence escalates in the eastside Pico neighborhood, or when police believe gang activity is heating up.

Joe Stitcher, assistant director of the Big Blue Bus, said overtime is necessary to operate the city’s bus system, which runs 21 hours a day.

“You can’t think of it in terms of an office job, where you can tell everyone, ‘Be here at 8, you’re going home at 5,’” said Stitcher, adding that, like the police department, much of the overtime worked is paid for by outside groups contracting for the city’s bus service. “In transit, there’s just a certain amount of overtime built into the system.”

In the end, Stitcher said because the Big Blue Bus is a union shop, it will always have workers vying for overtime pay. Though veteran workers have first access to overtime shifts, all workers get the opportunity, he added.

“We have some people, they enjoy their job, or they enjoy their work, and they obviously enjoy their money — and they’re willing to work for it,” Stitcher said.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 19, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081904.pdf?ref=smdp.com)