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DAMN

Source: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaind...5518189130.xml

And remember, this is in USD!!!

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Long-standing practices aggravate problem of hefty police overtime

11/03/03

Mark Gillispie and Scott Hiaasen
Plain Dealer Reporters


Cleveland Patrolman James Simone's stair-climbing exercise is a moneymaker.

Many weekday mornings find Simone jogging up and down a back stairwell at the Justice Center, traveling from courtroom to courtroom to help prosecute traffic offenses and misdemeanors.


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It's not uncommon for Simone, who wrote 1,800 traffic tickets last year while working nights, to receive six or more subpoenas for hearings at the same time. Records show that few of those subpoenas go unanswered.

Simone earned $39,872 in court overtime last year, the most in the department, and has earned about $130,000 in total overtime since 2000.

Patrolman James Dunn is not far behind. He wrote 2,245 tickets in 2002, second-highest in the department, and earned a little more than $38,000 in court overtime.

While Dunn and Simone have reputations as hard workers, the court overtime they and their colleagues make for relatively minor cases is staggering.

More than half the department's $5 million court overtime bill last year - $2.6 million - was spent in Cleveland Municipal Court on traffic and misdemeanor cases. Columbus police, with nearly as many officers as Cleveland, spent $2.1 million in 2002 for all types of court overtime, including murders and other serious crimes.

In part, Cleveland's costs reflect department policies.

With an increased emphasis on traffic enforcement - an attempt to heighten police visibility in city neighborhoods - the number of tickets written by Cleveland police doubled in the late 1990s, creating a momentum that's still visible in court.

Last year, Cleveland police wrote 120,000 traffic tickets. And law-enforcement goals aside, the city reaps clear benefits from the volume. It received $10.8 million last year from court fines, most from traffic citations.

But the strategy has boosted police overtime costs as well. And some officers say that problem is aggravated by long-standing practices that encourage people to challenge their traffic tickets in court.

"We've created a monster and we can't deal with it now," said one officer who earns lots of overtime in Municipal Court.

People who don't pay their fines and court costs in advance are supposed to attend a hearing soon after a ticket is issued. If they plead not guilty, a trial is scheduled and the officer who wrote the ticket is automatically summoned to court - usually on overtime.

To avoid the further expense of a trial in such cases, it's not unusual for prosecutors to reduce speeding charges to lesser violations that don't result in driver's-license points.

That, in turn, encourages violators to contest their tickets in hopes of getting a better deal. And that drives up the number of police subpoenas and the costs of court overtime.

City Prosecutor Sanford Watson said his prosecutors do not reduce charges routinely in traffic cases. Any such deals, he said, depend on a person's driving record.

But he said his office is studying ways to cut overtime by expediting quick plea deals.

Other city officials are exploring cost-cutting strategies as well.

More than a year ago, Councilman Zach Reed proposed establishing a night court for misdemeanor and traffic cases, which would make night-shift officers appear in court while on duty, and thus on straight time.

But Reed said last week that the idea has yet to attract much attention from Mayor Jane Campbell's administration.

Based on a Plain Dealer analysis of police payroll records, if even a fourth of court appearances by night-shift officers were scheduled during their regular hours, the Police Department could save more than $600,000 a year in court overtime costs.

Public Safety Director James Draper said last week the night-court idea bears a closer look.

"That may be a real possibility," Draper said. But it would require further study to see if overtime savings would exceed the costs of running the court.

And he cautioned that some judges may be resistant to the idea. "That will take some cooperation between the Police Department and the court," Draper said.

"Turf problems take a long time to change."




© 2003 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.

 
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Ghey

 
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Man i wish I worked in Cleveland!!

All our traffic court dates are scheduled on day shifts. In other words, we make absolutely NO overtime money for it.

This is obviously a USA issue. It does not happen here, at least not with Peel Region.

However, there is an awful lot of criminal court matters that are scheduled on days off. Sure it sounds like a great way to make some extra $, but its always overshadowed by the depressing state of our judicial process. I guess thats the weird part about being a cop. You charge a guy with something, and in the end he gets let off for the stupidest reason, or he gets a slap on the wrist. The only good thing that comes out of it, in our minds, is that at least we got a little pocket cash out of it.
What a god damn joke.

I shudda been a firefighter!

 
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gatta love the system... can be cheated in any possible way you can think of


that's good for ppl that get tickets from speeding/parking/running a red light.....etc.

 
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Whatever man, chix dig the uniform, either way! I myself wish I was some sort of costume-clad superhero or maybe an oldskool organ grinder....but I would train my monkeys to be assassins - it'd be great. No one EVER suspects the pantsless organ grinder? Oh wait, did I forget to mention I'd be pantsless?