At a hearing on Sept. 12, four days after an article in The Economist hailed Boston as the “safest big city in America,” District 4 (Dorchester/Mattapan) City Councillor Brian Worrell was focused on the state of a smaller territory: two shootings, a week apart, within a block of his district office.

“We need to ensure that precincts have enough walking beats and officers where they’re needed the most to make sure community policing is done right,” said Worrell, who co-moderated the hearing as head of the council’s Ways and Means Committee.

The article highlighted Boston’s decrease in homicides, with the most impressive statistic from the Police Department showing a 50 percent drop from Jan. 1 through Sept. 8, compared with the same period for 2023. And there were other encouraging figures: a 14 percent decrease in shootings, a 4 percent decrease in all violent crime, and an overall 3.2 percent drop in in major “part one” crimes. But Dorchester’s Area C-11 was a glaring exception, with the number of homicides jumping from 3 to 7.

Also dramatic, but less encouraging, were figures about the main focus of the hearing by the Ways and Means and Public Safety committees: the sharp increase in cost and amount of police overtime. According to figures presented by BPD officials at the hearing, overtime hours between fiscal years 2022 and 2024 increased by 26.4 percent, with overtime for “special events” slightly more than doubling.

As in past decades, Boston’s current overtime crunch has been intensified by pressures on city revenue. But, as councillors and city officials noted, they have to balance spending concerns with demands for coverage—to be supplied by an aging police force whose departures outpace the influx of new recruits.

“Whether I’m in West Roxbury or Jamaica Plain, the most common complaint about police that I get is that people want to see more of them,” said District 6 (West Roxbury/Jamaica Plain) Councillor Ben Weber. “Folks in Mildred Hailey Apartments and Egleston Square have asked for walking beats. Others want officers stationed near busy intersections. The question today is not about whether the Boston Police Department and Commissioner Cox are doing a good job. The question is whether, in a city with finite resources, the police department is working efficiently, and whether police department leaders have a plan to ensure that officers are paid properly, that they have enough time off to rest and spend time with their families, all while still keeping our city the safest in the country.”

Accounting for 18 percent of overtime hours, the “special events” category is used for anything from neighborhood parades and festivals to “open streets” gatherings. BPD figures show almost two-thirds of the category reflects police deployment for public health and safety around the area of Mass. Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.

Lisa O’Brien, the BPD’s co-bureau chief of administration and technology, told councillors that there had been “a significant increase in special events.” That included police deployments since last October for protests in response to the escalation of conflict between the Israeli government and Hamas, as well as for protecting places of worship.

Deputy Superintendent Dan Humphreys told councillors about recent steps to reduce overtime costs, whether by covering more vacancies with officers on regular shift time, or meeting safety needs for events while deploying fewer officers. Through Aug. 23, almost two months into FY 2025, the BPD reports that overtime was down by about 5.6 percent.

The largest decrease in overtime during the past three fiscal years was for staff replacement, dropping by 14.9 percent. Officials attributed the gains to having fewer officers being out on medical leave, the transfer of uniformed officers out of administrative positions, and having some officers who had been sidelined with injuries redeployed in other kinds of duty.

The largest overtime category was for extended hours, having officers work beyond the end of a shift. If the extension comes at least 15 minutes after the end of a shift, officers have to be paid a minimum of four hours of overtime. Over the past three fiscal years, the number of hours for extended shifts increased by 58.3 percent.

Former Boston mayor Marty Walsh tried to cut city overtime in 2016, after a 34 percent increase in hours for the BPD from 2010-2015. At the time, the department had a staff of 3,000. In figures shown at the council hearing, the BPD had 2,228 sworn positions, including officers on leave and recruits in training. That left 1,671 full-duty officers to be spread over three shifts.

“We’re in a hiring crisis,” the president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association (BPPA), Larry Calderone, testified by remote connection. “No matter where we take officers from, from one unit to another, from one shift to another, it creates a vacancy,” he said. “The reason it creates that vacancy is because we are short over 500 officers. The correlation is very simple. We need more bodies on the street.”

Following the latest budget increase for the BPD, at $63 million, some councillors questioned whether more officers would reduce overtime for personnel replacement, court appearances, and special events.

“There would be no cost savings for these categories simply by adding officers to the force,” Weber reasoned. “Instead, you would expect to see those overtime costs increase without proper oversight. Just adding 500 officers to reduce overtime spending would be like trying to stop a fire by adding more wood.”

BPD Superintendent Robert Ciccolo estimated that more officers should result in less replacement overtime, though there could still be more overtime for court appearances and extended hours, in addition to use of recently enhanced family leave benefits.

District 3 (Dorchester) Councillor John FitzGerald cast understaffing as the main driver of increased overtime, and he contended that any new overtime hours generated by additional staffing would be worth the cost. “But, even if it’s at a slight cost, again, you’re getting that bang for your buck right,” he said. “At the end, you’re getting the results you want to see for a safer city.”

O’Brien attributed the lag in recruiting to a national hiring problem. Calderone relayed complaints from officers about excessive overtime requirements. He told councillors that some officers used voluntary overtime slips to avoid mandatory assignments outside their regular district.

“And they’re leaving in droves to go to other jobs. They’re leaving for the fire department. They’re leaving for the private sector. They’re leaving because they’re frustrated and they’re mentally anguished at the amount of hours they’re forced to work,” Calderone insisted.

“But when you have the folks today that are being overworked, they’re not being backed up by the courts, morale can be low,” FitzGerald concluded. “We’ve seen some conditions that are tough to work in. And you’ve got brazenness on the rise –not necessarily violent crime, but just more of having to deal with an attitude back from the general public.”

Though The Boston Globe recently reported that almost 100 officers made more than $100,000 last year in overtime pay alone, the BPPA has continued to blame residency requirements and the high cost of housing in Boston as a deterrent to new recruits. Currently, officers have to live in the city for at least ten years, in addition to at least one year before taking the civil service exam. The city adopted the requirement in 1976, when it was advanced as a way to stem “middle-class exodus.”

At the hearing, Calderone and District 2 (South Boston/South End/Chinatown) Councillor Ed Flynn called for changes in the residency requirement. Calderone offered to engage in “conversations to lift, modify the residency policy as quickly as possible.” Flynn went further, saying, “I’m against the residency. I think it’s hurting recruiting, retention. I think we should abolish residency across the city.”

Worrell said comments aired at the hearing would be developed in working session, with recommendations being passed on to Mayor Wu for the next police contract negotiations. Mixed in with three-and-a-half hours of testimony were additional comments about needs for service: from District 5 (Hyde Park/Roslindale) Councillor Enrique Pepén for more walking and beat coverage, and from District 8 (Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Fenway, Mission Hill) Councillor Sharon Durkan, for attention to public safety concerns at the Boston Common and the busy traffic intersection near the Eliot K-8 Innovation School in the North End.

Ciccolo acknowledged that safety was not defined solely by statistics, and that decisions about police deployment could be informed by the larger assortment of concerns reflected by 911 calls and community requests.

“People want to see a walking beat in Downtown Crossing; we look at that,” he explained. “We are considering call volume but, ultimately, we are in the business of making people feel safe. It’s not just the stats. I mean, nobody’s going to hug the homicide statistics. That’s not what makes you feel good.”