 [FoxNews] The NYPD – said to be the largest police force in the country – is projected to surpass its budgeted overtime expenditures by $142.7 million for fiscal year 2022, which runs through June, according to IBO data provided to Fox News Digital and first reported by Bloomberg. If the office’s projections ring true, the NYPD will have spent the second-highest amount of overtime, behind 2020 with $837.5 million, in the six years provided by IBO.
A spokesperson for the office noted that the statistics reflect all NYPD overtime, including that for civilian members, but more than 80% comes from uniformed officers.
But what is causing such high overtime expenditures?
"I would guess that this fiscal year, with the violence being up as high as it has been, they’ve been doing more and more of that violence reduction overtime. It’s putting the extra cops out on the streets," said Terence Monahan, who served as the NYPD's Chief of Department – the highest-ranking uniformed police officer – from 2018 to 2021, under Police Commissioners Dermot James O'Neill and Dermot Shea.
"Plus, now events are happening. Parades are happening again. Parades always come into overtime because it takes a lot of personnel," he added.
Monahan, who spent just months shy of 40 years with the department, told Fox News Digital it is not unusual for the NYPD to go over budget in terms of its overtime spending, but noted that OT costs in 2021 were as low as they were – $480.50 million – because there was "such a squeeze on everything we did."
"Plus, there were no events, there were no parades – everything was canceled, which helped somewhat on the overtime," he said. But the department also "didn’t do any of our violence reduction overtime that summer, which led to the most violent summer the city’s ever seen."
Asked if he had a response to those who might say the officers are trying to take advantage of the department’s overtime system, he said, "Absolutely not."
"Sometimes, we gotta force cops to take the overtime," he explained. "You know, they work on a schedule and occasionally they get Friday and Saturdays off, and now they're being told they gotta come in because we need extra coverage."
He added: "So, sometimes you're forcing people to come in to work that don't want to be there to make sure that everything that needs to be covered is covered." 
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