Denton police personally profited from red light cameras?

image: camera lens

Law enforcement by camera.

Police in Denton, Texas, personally profited from the use of red light cameras while the program was operational.

An audit of the police department’s use of overtime prepared for the city council on Tuesday found that, overall, officers added a collective $1.7 million to their take home pay with 30,000 overtime hours worked across all duty areas.

City officials agreed to implement reforms after city auditor Umesh Dalal revealed that only 40 percent of the overtime requests were “appropriately approved.”

“Supervisory approval is one of the most critical overtime controls as it helps ensure that overtime pay requested is actually worked by the employee,” Dalal wrote. “Allowing the police administrative supervisor to approve overtime overrides this control as the police administrative supervisor typically does not have direct knowledge of the hours an employee worked. In this way, an employee may be able to be paid for overtime that was not actually worked.”

The report notes that officers at the rank of assistant chief and above were able to self-approve their own overtime requests.

Read the rest of the story here.

Share Pratt on Texas

Speak Your Mind

*

© Pratt on Texas / Perstruo Texas, Inc.