Chicago Police Department Overtime Controls Audit

Executive Summary

The objective of the audit was to determine if CPD effectively manages regular-duty overtime to prevent waste and abuse. There are a variety of reasons why CPD members may work overtime related to their regular
shifts, such as attending a court hearing arising from an on-duty arrest during off-duty hours or processing an arrest at the end of a shift. This regular-duty overtime constituted 56.3% of all overtime dollars earned by CPD members from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2015.

The remaining 43.7% was earned by members voluntarily working special assignments (called Voluntary Special Employment, or VSE) on their days off, such as extra shifts for the City’s Violence Reduction Initiative, or shifts for the Chicago Transit Authority. This audit focused on regular-duty overtime, which the Department records using a paper-based process that requires timekeepers and support staff to make manual calculations and enter hard copy information into two separate data systems—the City’s payroll system (the Chicago Integrated Personnel and Payroll Systems, or CHIPPS) and CPD’s management reporting system (Citizen and Law Enforcement Management and Reporting, or CLEAR). Unlike regular-duty overtime, VSE overtime requests are submitted, approved, and maintained entirely electronically with no need for manual calculation or additional data entry.