LANSING — From 2020 through 2025, the City of Lansing paid $32.4 million in overtime, with the annual cost increasing each year.
About 75% of that money went to employees in the police and fire departments, which each spent more than $1.3 million on overtime each year, according to a State Journal analysis of city data.
The public works department had the third-highest overtime bill during the six-year period, averaging $1.1 million annually compared to the $2 million average for the police and fire departments. The economic and planning department had $692,000 in overtime over those six years and no other department exceeded $170,000 in that time.
Across all city employees, Lansing paid $3.7 million in overtime in 2020, which increased to $4.6 million in 2021; $5.3 million in 2022; $5.8 million in 2023; $6.2 million in 2024 and $6.8 million in 2025, the State Journal found.
On May 18, the Lansing City Council passed the city’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins on July 1. The budget includes additional staff for the police and fire departments but it’s unclear if it’s enough to reduce overtime spending that increased 83.5% from 2020 to 2025.
In a statement, Mayor Andy Schor said that, “Due to some staffing shortages we have paid overtime in several instances. Which is a frustration because we’d rather have staff in those positions. But the work needs to get done for the residents so sometimes overtime has to be offered.”
He said he does not have “a specific target for reductions in overtime spending” but that the budget passed on May 18 includes overtime budgets for each department that can be adjusted.
For the upcoming fiscal year, which starts July 1 and runs through June 30, 2027, the city had budgeted about $3.1 million for overtime, a figure lower than what it spent in 2020. Scott Bean, a spokesperson for the Schor, said that some money allocated toward vacant positions is used for overtime, but “we vastly prefer being staffed over using overtime.”
As of March 31, the city had 88 vacant positions, including 19 for police officers, according to its vacancy report. Lansing had 128 vacancies as of March 31, 2025.
The approved budget for the upcoming fiscal year adds three new firefighters, six new police officer positions using state revenue sharing grants and adds three new detention officers, which will allow five police officers to move to patrol work, officials have said.
During his budget presentation to City Council in April, Police Chief Rob Backus said the department is understaffed and that hiring “has been our priority” and “will continue to be our priority.”
The low staffing is one way overtime increases.
“When we have minimal staffing and we have to do things (to fill gaps) by offering up overtime because we don’t have enough people who are working the patrol,” Backus said. “Obviously the vacancy staffing helps us cover that so we’re not exceeding any budgets for the year.”
He added that the department made progress over the past year when it hired 25 people, including 18 who went through the police academy and seven cadets. Five of those cadets are eligible to enter the police academy through Lansing Community College in August.
The department has another 30 applicants who plan to enter the police academy. Five cadets, Backus said, have already passed the required background and psychological screening and he’s “hopeful” that the department will get “a number of good candidates” from the 25 remaining candidates.
Backus estimated there could be five retirements during the upcoming fiscal year, which runs from July 1 through June 30, 2027. The department will also look at ways to switch some positions to those that don’t require a sworn police officer, he said in April, which would free more officers for patrol and other police work.
Fire Chief Carrie Edwards-Clemons told council during her budget presentation on March 30 that the department’s union contracts set minimal staffing levels for each shift. The department pays overtime when there are shortages due to time off or other reasons. The department uses a call back system, she said, where employees not on shift can decide whether to report for work. The department is “seeking federal and state funding” for staffing and equipment, she added.
Working with the city’s human resources department has shortened the timeline to hire new firefighters to four months down from eight months, Edwards-Clemons said.
The department tries to manage staffing and overtime by front loading paramedic training, she said, which can take more than two years. It’s important training, she said, because the department responds to many medical calls. As of late May, the department had responded to more than 7,800 medical calls and more than 200 fire calls, according to department data.
In responding to a question from Councilmember Jeremy Garza about whether the three new positions in the budget was enough to counter any departures, Edwards-Clemons said that retention has been an issue.
“We have had many firefighters leave because once they get training we can’t control if they leave or not,” she said. “And so a lot of times they’ll come, they’ll become a medic or they’ll get the training, and they’ll go to other departments. And so the three (new positions) is what’s allotted, but of course we do need more.”
Contact reporter Matt Mencarini at mjmencarini@lsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Lansing’s overtime costs have nearly doubled since 2020
Reporting by Matt Mencarini, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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