Oakland Police Overtime: Is the Real Budget Hidden in Plain Sight?

Oakland has closed deficits by cutting civilian staff and programs, yet police overtime has run tens of millions of dollars over budget for years. Who is tracking where the money actually goes?

Oakland laid off staff while overtime ran $31 million over budget. Public pay records show 103 city employees took home more than $500,000 in 2025, and 99 of them were police officers or firefighters, according to city data reviewed by The Oaklandside [city payroll data]. The city faces budget gaps near $120 million a year through 2030 [Oaklandside], and it is bargaining with its unions now. Whatever your view of policing, taxpayers are entitled to ask where the money went.

Where Can You See What Oakland Pays Its Employees?

Anywhere you have an internet connection. Transparent California, a database run by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a free-market think tank, publishes base pay, overtime, other pay and benefits for Oakland employees and lets anyone download the data [Transparent California]. News outlets have also analyzed the city’s own compensation files for 2025 and for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Everything in this article comes from official records or from reporting built on them. No leaks, no anonymous tips. That is what makes it a safe place to start for a fiscal-accountability story, and a hard one for anyone to dismiss as opinion. Anyone can verify each figure, and anyone can run the same search for a different department or a different city.

What Does the Pay Data Show?

Ninety-nine Oakland police officers and firefighters collected total pay packages above $500,000 in 2025, mostly because of overtime. Police officers received just over half of all city overtime payouts, about $42 million [Oaklandside, citing city data]. The San Francisco Chronicle analyzed the 2025-26 fiscal year and found the same pattern: the highest-paid employees were police officers and firefighters, several above $700,000, with overtime sometimes doubling their base wages. The top earner’s package approached $900,000 [San Francisco Chronicle]. The two outlets use different time periods, so their totals differ. Outside police and fire, the highest-paid worker was the former city administrator at $534,000 [San Francisco Chronicle]. Overtime, not salary, drives the top of Oakland’s pay list. The contrast with the rest of city government is hard to miss. Financial pressure has led Oakland to lay off scores of civilian employees and freeze spending across a range of programs, while the number of officers with six-figure overtime packages rose sharply [Oaklandside]. Residents feel the first set of cuts in their daily services, and the second shows up only in the payroll files.

How Far Over Budget Has Overtime Run?

The police department overspent its overtime budget by $31 million last fiscal year and by $20 million the year before [San Francisco Chronicle]. It spent more than $55 million on overtime in the last full fiscal year [Oaklandside]. That is not a one-off. A 2015 city audit found police overtime costs had grown 80% in four years [Oaklandside]. The adopted budget set overtime at $33.6 million for 2025-26 and $38.2 million for 2026-27, well below recent actual spending [Oaklandside]. After voters rejected the Measure E parcel tax, the council approved a midcycle budget in June that cut the department’s budget from about $410 million to about $375 million and set a $36.9 million overtime allowance for 2026-27 [East Bay Express]. City leaders have tried to rein it in. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the city administrator announced a cut of more than $25 million from police overtime, but the city later said it expected to save only about $14.45 million, citing operational constraints and staffing needs [Oaklandside]. $31 million. That is how far police overtime exceeded its budget last year. The question: if a budget can be overspent by that much year after year, what is it for? Oakland laid off civilian staff and froze programs while police overtime ran $31 million over budget. If a budget can be missed that badly, is it still a budget?

Is the City Even Tracking What Overtime Buys?

Overtime is only as accountable as the records behind it. An Oaklandside investigation found the city could not produce records detailing much of the work behind one officer’s roughly $490,000 in overtime, and reported that the department still cannot effectively track officers’ overtime activities [Oaklandside]. The problem is not limited to police. A City Auditor report found Oakland paid at least $1.67 million more than required in overtime to 526 Transportation and Public Works employees between January 2018 and May 2024, because the city uses a calculation that differs from the federal standard. The auditor confirmed the excess payments were continuing [Oaklandside]. Oakland may pay more than the law requires, but it should know when it does.

If a department overspends its overtime budget every year, is it still a budget?

What Do Defenders of Police Overtime Actually Believe?

Defenders make a real argument. Police Chief Floyd Mitchell says chronic staffing shortages are at the root of the department’s overtime use [San Francisco Chronicle]. The police union’s president says the same [Oaklandside]. City leaders say the department and the fire department are understaffed relative to the service levels residents expect, so overtime keeps coverage in place [Oaklandside]. Mayor Barbara Lee has set a goal of reaching 700 officers [Oaklandside]. That argument holds on one point: when positions sit vacant, calls still need answers, and paying existing officers extra is how many departments keep coverage up. But a staffing explanation is not a spending control. The overruns have lasted for a decade, which means the city has had years to plan around them. Overtime paid to senior officers near the top of the pay scale also costs more per hour than hiring would [Oaklandside]. And a union-commissioned analysis argued that moving some sworn officers’ work to civilians could save roughly $8 million a year in overtime, plus another $5.2 million [Oaklandside, reporting the union analysis]. Defenders are right about the cause. The open question is whether the city is managing it. Staffing explains overtime. It does not explain missing records.

What Can Residents Do With This Data?

Start with the source. Search Oakland on Transparent California, sort by overtime, and compare departments. Then read the city’s adopted budget and the overtime figures the council has approved, and watch whether actual spending matches them. Treat the numbers as a starting point, not a verdict. High overtime can reflect an emergency, a vacancy or a bad system, and the pay data alone cannot say which. Every number here comes from public records. Residents do not need a leak to ask where the money went, only a search box and a few minutes. Key Questions This Story Raises:

• Why does the city budget overtime at a figure it has not hit in years?
• Can Oakland show, in plain language, what overtime hours bought for every department?
• Should overtime at top-of-scale rates be weighed against hiring and civilianizing roles? So is the real problem too much overtime, or too little accountability for it? The honest answer is both. Oakland’s pay records are public, its budget is public, and the gap between them is public too. The real question isn’t whether the city can afford its police. It’s whether the city can afford not to know exactly what it is paying for. Still have questions? Stay informed: subscribe for daily coverage of local government spending and accountability. Think others need to see where the money goes? Share this article. Want your voice to count? Look up your Oakland City Council member, email their office, and ask what the department’s actual overtime spending was this year compared with its budget.