Madison Police Dept. spent $1.3M in overtime, premium pay during first weeks of protests

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) - The City of Madison appears to have burned through over three months’ worth of its overtime and premium pay budgets during the first two weeks of the recent protests.

New numbers provided by the City to NBC15 show the combined overtime and premium pay paid out by the Madison Police Department between May 30, when the protests were getting underway, through MPD’s latest pay period, which ended on June 13, totaled $1,135,180. On top of that, MPD paid over $222,000 more in benefits, for a total of $1,358,129.

Because that figure doesn’t include the second half of June, any overtime caused by the violence that erupted following the arrest of Devonere Johnson and the police response to a confrontation with a driver who confronted the demonstrators, was not factored in. Two landmark Madison statues were toppled and a sitting state senator was allegedly attacked during those protests, which resulted in the City stepping up its prevention response and the Wisconsin National Guard being on alert the following day.

Most of the protests on the days included in the City’s overtime report and during the period since then have been chiefly peaceful, however a city spokesperson did not distinguish how staffing changed as peaceful protests took hold and how much overtime fluctuated between days.

According to the City Budget posted on its website, officials had allocated approximately $3.7 million for overtime pay and just over $1 million for premium pay for the entire 2019 fiscal year. The police department expects to provide an update in the coming weeks for how it will handle the extra expenditures going forward.

Line item detail of Madison Police Dept. salaries from latest City of Madison website.((Excerpt from City of Madison website))

In addition to paying its own officers, the Madison Police Dept. will need to reimburse other local law enforcement agencies that assisted during the protests. So far, the spokesperson said, it has only received one bill for mutual aid, totaling more than $50,000.