Police double dip on details
Hundreds get overlapping shifts
Hundreds of Boston police officers have been double dipping -- collecting pay for private detail shifts in two places at once, a Globe investigation has found.
The Boston Police Department paid officers for working details in separate locations at the same time on 724 occasions during the 2 years ending July 31, payroll records show. The Globe's analysis found 396 officers out of 2,035 departmentwide were paid for the overlapping shifts.
The benefits were spread across ranks, from patrolmen up to captains, including a commander of the department's Paid Detail Assignment Unit. And many benefited repeatedly, with 150 officers collecting detail pay for overlapping shifts on at least two occasions, according to the Globe's analysis. One collected double pay 23 times.
Officers and police administrators offer a variety of explanations, from mistakes by officers filling out their time cards to data-entry errors by clerks completing payroll orders. But Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole acknowledged that the large number of instances of double payment could be evidence of widespread manipulation of the system for extra pay.
Confronted with the Globe's analysis, O'Toole said that she was shocked to learn the extent of the problem and said that she would immediately begin a comprehensive review of department records to identify cheaters. She has instructed an internal committee to examine payroll records and investigate officers, and asked City Hall auditors to help reconfigure the computerized payroll system to flag overlapping shifts. She planned to hire the national auditing firm, Ernst & Young, to recommend reforms to the department's management of the detail system.
''We will aggressively discipline anybody who is found to have violated the laws and regulations of this department," O'Toole said. ''There's nothing more important than integrity."
Officers who cheated in order to get paid for more than one shift could be prosecuted for larceny, prosecutors said. Convictions could carry prison sentences of up to five years.
Since being contacted by the Globe last month, the department's Internal Affairs Division launched investigations of seven officers who turned in time cards indicating they simultaneously worked details at separate locations, said the division's commander, Superintendent Al Goslin.
Among them is Detective George P. Foley, who is being investigated for collecting pay for simultaneous shifts March 15, 2003. According to payroll records, he was paid to be at the Bayside Exposition Center from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and for a Big Dig detail from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. His pay for the day: $656.
Sergeant Martin B. Kraft, who was paid on six occasions for overlapping detail shifts, according to the Globe's analysis, is being investigated for shifts on April 4, 2003. He was paid for a Big Dig detail from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on that day while also getting paid for a 5 p.m.-11:45 p.m. shift at a Stop & Shop supermarket on Cambridge Street. Kraft's pay was $356.
Patrolman Bruce E. Smith, who the Globe found was double-paid in seven instances, is being investigated for shifts on June 3, 2003. Payroll records show he was paid for a midnight-7:30 a.m. shift at a homeless shelter on Massachusetts Avenue while also being paid for a midnight-2 a.m. shift at Bill's Bar on Lansdowne Street. He received a total of $304.
Also under investigation are Lieutenant Frederick J. Conley, Patrolman Edward L. Gately, Patrolman Gregory G. Matthews, and Sergeant Michael Wosny. Scores more officers could come under scrutiny in coming months, O'Toole said, as police officials in the detail payroll division comb through 1,400-odd time cards that payroll records indicate officers submitted for overlapping shifts.
Kraft told the Globe that he wrote the wrong date on one of his time cards, creating the appearance of an overlap. Foley, Smith, Conley, Gately, Matthews, and Wosny did not respond to messages left with supervisors yesterday and last week.
According to the Globe's analysis, Patrolman Joseph F. Scannell racked up the most cases of overlap with 23, involving 44 shifts. On June 8, 2002, payroll records show he was paid for working three details at once, at an
In 11 instances, Scannell was paid for shifts at Symphony Hall, while also getting paid to be at the John Hancock Tower parking garage, payroll records show. Scannell said Symphony Hall representatives may have signed him in early for those shifts, creating the overlaps. ''Sometimes they fill out the card, and we just turn it in," he said. A Symphony Hall spokeswoman, Bernadette Horgan, said Symphony Hall officials never fill out time cards.
''All officers are responsible for filling in their own detail slips," Horgan said.
Paid details are a lucrative part of Boston Police officers' compensation packages. With a city law requiring that at least one Boston police officer be present at every road construction site, police unions negotiate hourly rates for details into their contracts. Detail officers are also often required to direct traffic or work crowd control at large events, and some nightclubs hire them for extra security. Last year Boston police officers were paid a total of $26.3 million for 129,909 details.
Other states allow the hiring of flagmen to work construction sites at a fraction of the price. In Boston, the police union's new contract gave officers a $4 hourly raise for details, increasing the rates to $32 an hour for the lowest-rank officers and to $47 for the highest.
Police officials concede their system for keeping track of detail pay has no effective checks for catching double-payments. The two police offices responsible for assigning details -- one for Big Dig assignments and another for all other assignments -- do not compare assignments or payroll records to detect overlaps, said John E. Zuccaro, who heads the Paid Detail Payment Unit. Several of the officers most often double-paid had Big Dig assignments that overlapped with assignments handled by the other office. And businesses or government entities like the Big Dig are often lax in determining whether detail officers worked all their assigned hours. At the job sites, officers' time cards are typically signed by representatives of the companies requesting the details, but some acknowledge that oversight is not a priority.
''We try our best to monitor what happens at our construction sites, but our main focus is on the job itself," said John Vincenzo a spokesman for
At the Big Dig -- which was billed for 121 shifts in which officers were also paid to be somewhere else -- managers at the sites simply sign officers' time cards at the beginning and end of shifts.
''The Turnpike Authority expects that police officers scheduled to be on the street for Big Dig construction details are on site and doing what they're paid to do," Matthew J. Amorello, chairman of the Turnpike Authority, said in a written response to Globe questions about the authority's supervision of police details.
Big Dig work sites are so large that the numerous detail police are overseen by police supervisors. But that supervision is anything but foolproof.
Take the case of Sergeant Detective Elton M. Grice, who was paid to supervise about a dozen officers working Big Dig detail assignments during a late-night shift on June 10, 2003. But he spent part of his shift in a Tremont Street nightclub. Three managers at Aria said Grice showed up at about 11 p.m., saying he would be one of the club's security detail officers for the night. Grice, whose Big Dig shift began at 10 p.m., denies that. But an image taken by a nightclub security camera at about 11:40 p.m. shows Grice in uniform at the front door. He did not submit a time card for detail pay at the club.
Grice, acknowledging that he had left his Big Dig post, asserted that, as a supervisor, he had no responsibility to be present for the full shift for which he was being paid.
''I don't have to be at a certain location as a supervisor," Grice said, noting that he had checked on some of the detail officers he was supposed to oversee and that some of them were working sites near the club.
Even some of the highest ranking officers in the Paid Detail Assignment Unit saw no problems with collecting pay for working two details at once. The unit's commander, Captain Edward C. Wallace, whom O'Toole promoted to the post in June, got paid for the same hour's work at Fenway Park and at Copley Plaza in April 2002. In an interview with the Globe last week, Wallace called the overlap a ''bonus hour" and said it is normal procedure at Red Sox games to receive an extra hour's pay. Superintendent Goslin, the head of internal affairs, said there is no policy allowing officers to bill for hours they didn't work.
Just as there is little effective supervision of officers, there is little scrutiny of time cards once they are submitted. Officers turn in time cards for details worked, and clerical staff enter the hours into payroll orders. Because the payroll system does not check for overlaps, Zuccaro said that he relies on officers to catch mistakes. Each week, he sends lists to all district stations showing which officers are due to receive detail pay, along with the shifts for which they are being paid. He acknowledges that officers trying to manipulate the system are not likely to report themselves.
He said his office also counts on vendors, which receive itemized bills for detail work, to notify him if officers didn't work the shifts. ''We assume the information we get back from both the officer and the vendor is correct," he said.
Companies occasionally report officers who have not worked full shifts, Zuccaro said. But some say that when they have discovered problems, they were reluctant to report them for fear of reprisals.
''They're blacklisted if they do," said Alan Eisner, president of the Massachusetts Hospitality Association, which represents bars and restaurants. Boston police officers are also agents of the city's liquor licensing board, with authority to inspect bars and nightclubs, and Eisner said his members refrain from reporting problems rather than risk extra scrutiny from officers who want to get even.
''It's pay along to go along, to get along," Eisner said.
O'Toole vowed to put an end to such fears and said anyone with information about detail officers who may have been paid for shifts they didn't work should contact her immediately.
''If there's any hint whatsoever that that's happening, I want them to come to me personally," said O'Toole, who added that she had concerns about paid details since she was appointed commissioner early this year.
''They can speak to me on the record or anonymously, and I will address it, personally."
Matthew Carroll of the Globe staff contributed to this report.Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com. 