With donuts now over $20 a dozen and a cup of espresso topping $3, working a shift for the Los Angeles Police Division isn’t what it as soon as was.
However with extra time pay at 1.5 occasions the common hourly price, LAPD officers aren’t having bother footing the invoice at Randy’s or Starbucks. Certainly, extra time pay has now grown a lot that some detectives earn more cash than the town’s mayor and the state’s governor.
Due to extra time, many Los Angeles cops earn greater than Mayor Karen Bass.
Invision
In 2023, the final 12 months for which figures can be found, Detective Robert Rand greater than doubled his wage by way of extra time, incomes $324,875, in keeping with OpenGovPay.com. That simply topped the $224,020 wage of Gov. Gavin Newsom and the $301,000 paid to Mayor Karen Bass, information present.
Rand’s case isn’t distinctive. In 2024, the division spent an all-time excessive of $265.5 million on extra time alone, a rise of $100 million for that line merchandise within the metropolis’s price range since 2019.
Earlier than final 12 months, no LAPD officer had ever earned greater than $235,000 in yearly extra time pay. In 2024, seven officers did, together with Detective Nathan Kouri, whose mixed compensation of $603,887 made him the highest-paid cop within the Metropolis of Angels, in keeping with a report by OpentheBooks.com. All instructed, almost three dozen LAPD officers made at the very least $400,000 in total pay for the 12 months.
These whopping paychecks don’t look like a great deal for taxpayers or crime-fighting within the metropolis. The spike in extra time stems from three fundamental sources: a scarcity of cops, the Metropolis Council’s continued embrace of the motion to defund the police, and normal fiscal pressures. Nevertheless, chopping the power is costing the town extra, not much less, whereas additionally hindering the LAPD’s means to reply to requires assist.
In 2020, a complete of 14,902 LAPD staff (each sworn officers and civilian employees) made a complete of $1.71 billion. 4 years later, the division shrank to 12,617 staff however value the town $1.73 billion – a rise due at the very least partly to the increase in expensive extra time pay to cowl for the scarcity of sworn officers.
However regardless of the thinner ranks and thicker payroll, native policymakers have opted for additional cuts to the division’s manpower, which may drive up extra time pay much more.
A current report by OpentheBooks.com discovered that it isn’t simply cops who’re being requested to do extra. “The highest-paid lifeguard in LA county was compensated greater than $500,000 in 2024; and over the previous 5 years, a single lifeguard was capable of pull down $702,000 – in extra time alone!” the report stated.
The watchdog group Open the Books studies that Los Angeles depends on extra time for a number of providers.
Open the Books
Los Angeles spent $1.1 billion on extra time pay for public employees throughout all metropolis departments in 2024, a determine larger than the town’s almost billion-dollar price range deficit.
Los Angeles is only one of many main cities struggling to offer primary providers within the face of declining income stemming from shuttered downtown companies, lack of federal funds, and sharply rising pension funds, amongst different causes.
The current riots in Los Angeles – and President Trump’s choice to ship 4,800 U.S. Marines and members of California’s Nationwide Guard to the town – have centered consideration on its shrinking regulation enforcement capabilities. The LAPD, which was staffed with round 10,000 sworn officers in the beginning of 2020, argues that that is the minimal variety of cops it wants to reply to 911 calls and deal with public security issues. However LAPD brass anticipates they’ll lose greater than 150 extra officers over the subsequent 12 months, shrinking the power to round 8,620 by June 30, 2026.
Making issues worse for the division, the Metropolis Council’s Could 2025 vote in favor of extra LAPD cuts will go away the company with simply 8,400 cops, the bottom quantity since 1995. That might proceed a long-term development. In fiscal 12 months 2020-2021, a complete of 631 police officers from all ranks left the division or the occupation, with many taking early retirement, in keeping with a report by the Los Angeles Police Fee.
The grim arithmetic means Los Angeles has far fewer cops relative to its inhabitants than many different huge U.S. cities. In 2022, for instance, Washington, D.C., employed 543 officers per 100,000 residents whereas Los Angeles had simply 237. Different cities that beat Los Angeles on this metric embrace Chicago, New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Miami.
“Initially of this price range course of, we made a promise to keep up core providers and decrease impacts to Angelenos,” Metropolis Councilmember Traci Park stated throughout a price range assembly in late Could. “However this price range doesn’t replicate these guarantees. We’re shrinking LAPD in favor of increasing different packages that haven’t been efficient.”
Metropolis Councilmember Traci Park says the town is “shrinking LAPD in favor of increasing different packages that haven’t been efficient.”
AP
Whereas Park didn’t single out packages she finds ineffective or undeserving of extra funding, the brand new price range provides $14 million in funding for a popular program of defund the police efforts: having unarmed groups, moderately than cops, reply to non-violent calls. The groups are made up of psychological well being professionals who “reply to…people experiencing psychological well being disaster, substance abuse disaster, and homelessness,” in keeping with the information website LAist.
A social employee who spoke to RealClearInvestigations on the situation of anonymity on account of concern of retaliation says the town’s unarmed response groups normally find yourself calling for LAPD backup anyway.
“Oftentimes we encounter people who find themselves having psychological well being emergencies and we may also help by attempting to deescalate the scenario,” she stated. “However to say that we solely reply to nonviolent calls isn’t true,” she continued. “Quite a lot of occasions, the particular person affected by an episode is bodily threatening us, or they’ve weapons and we don’t really feel secure.” She says a greater system is having psychological well being professionals accompany sworn officers moderately than reduce police out of the equation totally.
Lower than two months after the Metropolis Council handed a brand new price range with cuts to the LAPD, aggressive immigration raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sparked huge demonstrations and unrest in downtown Los Angeles. In response, officers clocked in so many extra time hours that the town has needed to borrow $17.3 million in loans to cowl police compensation in 2025.
Extra extra time is probably going on the horizon as Los Angeles gears up for high-profile international occasions, together with the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer season Olympics.
BLM and Defunding the Police
Greater than a decade in the past, in 2013, then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced that the LAPD would obtain the mandatory funds to exceed 10,000 sworn officers, marking the very best quantity within the division’s historical past. The native authorities seen the promise as fulfilling a longtime aim for the town.
BLM riots in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s dying led many cities, incluidng LA, to scale back its police power.
AP
However seven years later, public notion swung wildly within the different course. Within the wake of 2020’s nationwide protests towards police violence, spurred by the killing of George Floyd whereas being arrested by Minneapolis police, native policymakers heeded calls to “defund the police” and moved to slash the LAPD’s 2021 price range by $150 million. Anti-police activists hailed the transfer as a primary step towards “reimagining” public security; others warned it may go away the town weak to crime and dysfunction.
Practically 5 years later, the town’s precise spending on the LAPD has surged on account of ballooning extra time prices. In actual fact, taxpayers are shelling out tens of hundreds of thousands extra in extra time pay than they might have if the police power had been totally staffed.
LAPD officers have seen a substantial year-over-year enhance in extra time. By 2022, when the division had 9,496 sworn officers, almost $214 million of the LAPD’s payroll was spent on extra time. By fiscal 12 months 2024, extra time pay ballooned to $265.5 million because the power shrank to eight,688 officers.
The exploding extra time prices have outrun any financial savings the town aimed to attain by way of trimming the police price range, and financial 12 months 2025 is on monitor to exceed final 12 months’s document complete. As of April 17, months earlier than the anti-ICE demonstrations broke out, extra time pay already accounted for 17% of the division’s payroll. As anti-ICE demonstrations proceed, that quantity is predicted to develop exponentially.
Mayor Bass, who was a vocal supporter of “defund the police” initiatives in 2020, has since reversed course, and her current price range proposals advocate extra funds be dedicated to the LAPD. “Public security and public belief aren’t mutually unique,” she stated. “We can’t afford to depart our communities under-protected whereas we determine it out.”
The Metropolis Council’s majority disagreed and voted 12-3 to slash funding for LAPD recruitment. The brand new price range additionally rejected Bass’ proposal for 480 new police hires, chopping that down to only 240. “That discount would depart the LAPD with about 8,400 officers in June 2026, down from about 8,700 this 12 months,” in keeping with the Los Angeles Occasions.
Councilmember Park was one of many three “no” votes. “All of our residents and taxpayers, all they need is a completely funded police and hearth division,” she stated in a fiery speech previous to the physique’s vote. “We’re down rabbit holes of spending on issues that nobody cares about.”
Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, heart, responded to a query about public security by saying, “F*** the police.”
AP
Park finds herself in an more and more dwindling minority of council members who see the worth in a well-staffed police division. In Los Angeles, her strategy has been drowned out by radical newcomers like Democratic freshman councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, who responded to a marketing campaign query about public security by saying, “f*** the police”.
Jurado’s marketing campaign was backed by council members Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernandez, and Hugo Soto-Martinez, all of whom additionally gained seats with their calls to defund the police. Although the Metropolis Council had already trimmed the police price range by some $150 million a 12 months previous to Soto-Martinez and Hernandez’s choice to run, Soto-Martinez nonetheless promised constituents that “we’re not going to cease till we defund the police.” Hernandez went additional, promising to abolish the police altogether.
Neither Soto-Martinez nor Hernandez responded to a request for remark.
On many events, their anti-police sentiment has been expressed by Councilwoman Raman, together with in 2023 when the town had skilled three consecutive years of rising catalytic converter thefts. LAPD information confirmed that whereas there have been just one,200 such thefts in 2019, the quantity rose to eight,322 by 2022. The automotive half, which incorporates valuable metals, can value as much as $2,000 to exchange, a steep sum for working-class households in costly Los Angeles.
However, Councilwoman Raman minimized the rash of thefts and as an alternative blamed auto producers for making the automotive half straightforward to steal. Raman additionally voted towards a measure that will have focused thieves in possession of catalytic converters.
Regardless of Raman’s objection, the 2023 movement handed 8-4. The brand new regulation appears to have had an influence. Final 12 months, LAPD Interim Chief Dominic Choi stated that there have been 2,313 catalytic converter thefts citywide from Jan. 1 to June 4, 2024, down from the three,857 thefts over the identical timeframe a 12 months earlier. The decline represented a roughly 45% lower 12 months over 12 months.
Burnout, Diminished Morale, Longer Response Occasions
The heavy reliance on extra time doesn’t simply damage LA’s price range – it additionally impacts officer morale and efficiency. Prolonged shifts result in fatigue, stress, and diminished effectiveness, all of which may contribute to errors, misconduct, or gradual response occasions.
Critics argue that overworked officers usually tend to interact in unfavorable interactions with the general public, undermining the very aim of police reform. “You may’t reform a system by overburdening it to the purpose of dysfunction,” stated Rev. James Hartley, a group organizer in South Los Angeles. “What we have now now could be the worst of each worlds: overworked police and underserved neighborhoods.”
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell stated his power was “overwhelmed” by crime linked to current anti-ICE protests.
AP
Add civil unrest to the combination, and the scene seems very similar to June 2025, when daytime anti-ICE demonstrations devolved into riots at evening. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell conceded that his understaffed division was “overwhelmed (with the) variety of individuals” engaged in looting and dysfunction.
“They’ll take backpacks crammed with cinder blocks and hammers, break the blocks, and go the items round to throw at officers and automobiles, and even at different individuals,” McDonnell stated. “We’ve had unknown liquids – who is aware of what – thrown at officers. There’s no restrict to what they’re doing to our officers.”
However even when there are not any riots or mass protests, former Interim LAPD Chief Dominic Choi argued throughout an interview with native radio station KNX final 12 months that understaffing was impacting “our means to stop crimes from taking place. There’s much less time to do group engagement, there’s much less time to construct resiliency in communities and set up these relationships. So in the end, if that diminishes, I can promise you crime will go up.”
Workers shortages have contributed to longer police response occasions, with non-emergency callers now ready anyplace from 40 minutes to an hour for police to reach, in keeping with Choi.
“We completely want extra officers so we are able to proceed to reply to emergency calls in underneath seven minutes, and our non-emergency calls have to get again to roughly 15-20 minutes,” he stated.
