HONOLULU (KHON2) — Honolulu police officers are working more than just their regular shifts, and some are cashing in big. With schedules and duties that make it easy to log overtime hours, certain officers boosted their pay by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Honolulu patrol officers work three 13-hour days a week. But when you take into account things like appearing in court or reports that need to be written, HPD leaders say overtime adds up fast.
“It’s pretty easy to make over a thousand hours of overtime,” said Interim Chief Rade Vanic of the Honolulu Police Department.
Vanic talked to the HPD Commission Wednesday about the issue of overtime. According to HPD records, about 125 officers logged more than a thousand hours of overtime in the 2024-2025 fiscal year.
“We have 1,800 officers in the department, but 800 of those are in patrol, so when you say that 100 officers made over a thousand hours, I think they’d be a lot more, that’s not that many,” Vanic said.
Vanic says if a 25-year veteran of the force worked two extra 13-hour shifts every week, an officer would make $224,000 a year, a sergeant $255,000, and a lieutenant $278,000.
“You know, you’re always going to see people that are trying to work the system and I do think that in some cases they might not be working the system because we’re offering lots of overtime,” said Councilmember Andria Tupola.
“I hate to say that this day and age, especially living in Hawaii, cost of living, it’s becoming less and less about the job and more and more about I gotta pay the bills,” Vanic said.
Vanic says the department does have management rights and can cap an officers overtime. But that’s not necessarily done right now.
“If you see the same officer working over and over again, are the commanders asking those questions,” Vanic said. “Eh brah you know what, I see you working, this is your 4th day in a row. You good or what?”
The department is also short officers. SHOPO, the Hawaii state police officers union, says there are 460 vacancies right now of the nearly 2,200 officers needed — a 21% shortage. Councilmember Tupola says fixing that could help cure the cause.
“I’m working on a task force to address these vacancies but also for us to come up with a very specific plan that needs to be funded because if we had a plan and we were funding that plan say with like 89 day contract hires or with reserve officers we might need less overtime,” Tupola said.