We don’t have enough police officers, firefighters, or solid waste employees. I expect we will soon hear the city hollering about why we need to make residents pay more for less.
Yesterday, as I was on Beechnut St., I told my wife that I had never seen Beechnut in such bad shape since I moved to the Southwest Part of Houston. That was 56 years ago.
The more disturbing part of what I read was the reduction in overtime for detectives who investigate homicides. Maybe that is why it is easier not to call a mysterious death a homicide. If it is labeled a homicide, it would then have to go in the books as an unsolved murder case. We must do our best to have our police look good on paper.
HOUSTON — A Houston Police Department detective informed the family of Kenneth Cutting Jr. Wednesday that the department would not be reopening his case, despite errors recently discovered in his autopsy report by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.
… He added that resource constraints often play a role in these decisions.
“Often times there’s manpower issues, and they’re flooded with calls and flooded with deaths that they have to deal with they have to go with the most compelling first, the ones they think they can make a case on first. And that happens a lot,” Nixon said.
The overtime budget is going faster than sausages at a Texas picnic.
Houston officials have sounded the alarm over ballooning overtime spending in key departments—including police, fire, and solid waste—that has already driven costs far beyond what was budgeted for the year.
At a Houston City Council budget meeting on Tuesday, officials once again raised concerns over the city’s growing overtime problem.
Earlier this year, Controller Chris Hollins reported that the fire department spent 94 percent over its overtime budget last fiscal year, the police department went 190 percent over, and solid waste exceeded its limit by 75 percent. In real numbers, those departments spent $137 million on overtime despite budgeting only $65 million—more than double the planned amount.
Data presented on Tuesday showed the issue is continuing into the new fiscal year. The Houston Police Department has already spent 44 percent of its overtime budget, the fire department nearly 45 percent, and the solid waste department roughly 43 percent.