We have to be honest about what’s going on at the NOPD: It’s a protection racket.
Let’s take the example of Sergeant Henry Burke. Burke’s 2024 base salary was $83,000, which equates to about $39.90/hour. However, in 2024, he earned $121,430 in overtime pay. That’s the equivalent of 2,024 hours of OT.
To put that into perspective: 2,080 is a full 40-hour-per-week work year. So, in OT, he worked an additional 97.3% of a full work year on top of the base 40 hours. How was that not immediately flagged? You’d have to eat, sleep, shower, and shave at the NOPD office.
Fox 8 launched the first segment of its series investigating the infestation of NOPD payroll abuse. Skip Gallagher, an NOPD watchdog, joined my show today to explain the troubling depth of this problem.
“I'm not surprised at all. I've been warning the NOPD for nearly five years that this is a problem, and they've just failed to take action,” says Gallahger. “And it's not a difficult problem to attack. They actually have a unit within the NOPD called the Secret Squirrel Squad that is tasked with investigating officer corruption. And if it was used effectively, they would clearly and easily be able to identify some of these high-paid officers. So there's about forty-four officers, making over $200,000, and you have to look at these and wonder how in the world they can claim as many hours as they do in a day, week, year, and achieve those kinds of compensation levels.”
When you begin sifting through the details, you find a troubling failure—or, frankly, a refusal—to investigate its own officers' payroll theft.
“Only one report that I have ever seen used really detailed information to track the officer to find out if they were actually at work or at their details. And in the rest, they just haven't used that information. Things like license plate readers or GPS on their vehicle or GPS data for their phone,” explains Gallagher. “I've actually talked to investigating officers who told me specifically they were prohibited from using that kind of information when investigating an officer for payroll fraud.”
Now we know these aren’t isolated cases that slipped through the cracks. Gallagher explains that this issue is like a cancer running through the department.
“This is not a problem that just two officers were found doing this. This is shooting fish in a barrel. They picked a few officers, and sure enough, those few officers were doing exactly what they thought they were,” says Gallagher. “They were recording 16-plus-hour days, back to back, repeatedly, very few days off, very little time off. And what the reality is, there's considerable time off because they're not actually working those hours.”
Another example Gallagher gives is Officer Brandon Coleman, who earned a base salary of $64,000 in 2024. However, his final payout was $217,000. Numerically, that’s 1.59 times the equivalent of his full-time job in OT alone. And NOPD records show Coleman recorded 149 16+ hours days in 2024.
“There are dozens of these, and they've all been grossly inefficient: Not pulling license plate data, not looking at GPS for the vehicle, not looking at GPS for their cell phone. There’s often no trip sheets for them,” Gallagher explains.
But the issue stretches even further than baseline abuse. When you look at the correction process, the picture only gets darker. These infractions are sometimes known, but rarely dealt with. And even when they are, the punishment is hardly even a slap on the wrist.
Gallagher explains, “Most of the payroll fraud cases don't make it to civil service because usually the punishment is maybe two, three, four days. It's insignificant. So, a great example of this—or an awful example of this—is an officer who was found in two years and ten months with 333 payroll violations. That officer was given a five-day suspension.”
“We’ve had officers who were recording more than 24 hours worked within a 24-hour period,” Gallagher continues. “And when it was investigated, the officers were given a letter of reprimand or maybe a two or three-day suspension.”
At this point, it’s clear that the entire chain of command must be investigated. Gallagher explains that such measures are finally underway.
“It’s a reflection of a new chief who has a very different attitude toward this. I think we're going to see a more thorough investigation this time around,” Gallagher tells me. “I think the fact that two officers were identified relatively easily doing this means that they are going to find more problems.”
Gallgher also explains that a state audit that’s yet to become public will provide an even deeper picture of the failure of the NOPD to utilize things like trip sheets to track the whereabouts and duties of officers who record OT.
“Hopefully, that will become public soon. It looks like maybe early next year,” says Gallagher.
While Gallagher maintains a positive view of NOPD Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, he states that these abuses run so deep that it’s going to take a long time to uproot and eliminate them.
However, evidence shows Kirkpatrick has worked hard to fire problematic NOPD officers at a surprising rate.
“It is a complex mess that developed over generations. And as we've talked about in previous discussions, one of the things we've seen is that the chief has fired people. From January to August this year, she had fired sixteen officers. That is unheard of,” says Gallagher. “In twenty twenty two, no officers were terminated…The chief is trying to do the right thing. It's just it's a big organization…And this payroll fraud issue that's endemic within the NOPD is going to be a particularly difficult nut to crack.”