Chief Charles H. Ramsey
Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, DC
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this afternoon to review the Metropolitan Police Department’s spending during fiscal years 1998 and 1999, and to discuss its impact on our Department and public safety in the District. With me today are Executive Assistant Chief Terrance Gainer, Executive Director for Corporate Support Eric Coard, and Chief Financial Officer Dan Tangherlini.
A major goal of my administration over the last year has been to get the Police Department’s house in order—financially as well as operationally. To successfully rebuild the Department, reduce crime, and restore the public's confidence in us, I knew it was critical that we do two things: exert stronger management control over our spending, and more closely align our budget with the operational priorities of the Department. In other words, we needed to make sure we were spending our limited resources where they could have the greatest impact. I believe we have made important progress in these areas over the last year.
Financial Stability
Overall, the financial state of the Metropolitan Police Department is sound. We operated within our budget in FY98, spending approximately 99 percent of the local funds appropriated to us. Year to date for FY99, we remain on our budget targets as well.
One of the keys to success has been our ability to reign in overtime costs. Between FY97 and FY98, the Department reduced total spending on overtime by nearly 39 percent, from more than $19 million to less than $12 million. We accomplished this primarily through strict management controls on overtime not related to court appearances. Spending on non-court overtime was slashed from $13.5 million in FY97 to $6.2 million in FY98—a reduction of more than 54 percent.
We also held the line on court overtime costs. To a large extent, these costs are dictated by the needs of the US Attorney’s Office, the Corporation Counsel and the courts. Still, we are trying to bring these costs down by streamlining the papering process, and by working with the US Attorney's Office and the Corporation Counsel to keep to a minimum the number of officers who must attend pretrial conferences and other proceedings. These reforms have the benefit of not only reducing costs, but also ensuring that more of our officers are out in the community, not sitting in court, during their regular tours of duty.
Of course, the need for overtime will continue to put pressure on our resources, as the Department works to get back to our budgeted strength of 3,600 officers and, eventually, to our full authorized strength of 3,800. In the meantime, we will continue to hold the line on excessive overtime costs through strict management oversight and greater cooperation with other criminal justice agencies.
In addition to controlling overtime costs, we have worked hard to maximize our use of grant funds over the last two years. We are spending these funds more efficiently, and we are exerting greater management control over how grants are applied for, spent and monitored. In the past, it was not uncommon to have different units within the Department competing for the same grants. Now, we have streamlined the process by making the Office of Organizational Development responsible for reviewing and coordinating all grant applications, and ensuring that the grants we apply for are directed toward clear objectives. In FY98 we spent approximately 72 percent of the $9.3 million in federal grant funds the Department was authorized, and 27 percent of the funds have been carried over into FY99, primarily for information technology and infrastructure projects.
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