Seattle officer's overtime case shows gaps in monitoring

SEATTLE (AP) — A Seattle civilian police watchdog group has found that an officer repeatedly worked over 90 hours a week and earned so much overtime that he was the highest-paid city employee one year at more than $400,000 — and none of his supervisors noticed.

The review by Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability of the case of Officer Ron Willis found 15 times in which he worked more than 90 hours a week in 2019 and identified numerous gaps in the Seattle Police Department’s ability to monitor overtime, The Seattle Times reported.

In a letter to interim Chief Adrian Diaz, OPA director Andrew Myerberg urged the police department to track hours in a centralized database or require the department’s human resources staff to “flag employees who may be working excess hours.”

As a result of the review, Willis was suspended for one day without pay for working more than the maximum hours allowed by department rules. A police spokesperson said Willis wasn’t available for comment, and efforts to reach him by the newspaper weren’t successful.

The Police Department has long struggled to monitor overtime and has been the subject of multiple critical findings from city auditors and the oversight group.

A 2016 audit of the department's overtime controls described confusion and inconsistencies in how overtime pay is logged, with little independent monitoring. Hours could be entered into an electronic time sheet or on paper, creating the potential for duplicate payments, the auditor found.

The gaps in oversight have persisted. In summarizing its investigation of Willis, OPA noted that overtime records are kept on paper, making it challenging to quickly find and check hours. Supervisors who approve an officer’s time sheet don’t have access to overtime records.

“A database that works as a one-stop shop for all things overtime,” coupled with some mandatory supervisor checks, “would likely remedy this issue,” OPA wrote.

In his interview with OPA, Willis didn’t dispute working over 90 hours a week, and denied being paid for time he didn’t work. The officer said he felt his hours were all allowable under the “public safety” exemption that allows Seattle officers to work beyond the maximum, but acknowledged he didn’t seek the required waiver.

OPA found no evidence that Willis’ performance suffered, saying he was the subject of few complaints and uses of force.

The OPA review couldn’t conclusively determine whether Willis worked all the hours he was paid for, citing the limitations on how police employees clock in and out that have stymied similar investigations in the past.