Mayor Adams is cracking down on excessive overtime spending within the NYPD, FDNY, city Department of Correction and Sanitation — just days after bombshell allegations surfaced that former NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey was swapping sex for overtime, the Daily News has learned.
In an internal directive written on Monday and posted online Thursday, Adams ordered the first deputy mayor, his chief of staff, deputy mayor for public safety, and his Office of Management and Budget to oversee overtime spending by the city’s uniformed services and provide monthly reports to ensure the agencies were in lockstep with their yearly overtime projections.
The overtime spending reduction targets were still being drafted, an Adams’ spokeswoman said.
He also ordered each department to limit the number of people who can approve overtime and provide a complete list of their names to the mayor’s office.
“Controlling the use of overtime, including paid compensatory time, shall be the direct responsibility of each agency’s commissioner,” Adams wrote in his directive.
These safeguards were announced just a few days after NYPD Lt. Special Assignment Quathisha Epps, one of the department’s top overtime earners, accused Maddrey of predatory sexual harassment and forcing her to perform “unwanted sexual favors” in return for overtime pay.
In a complaint filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Epps alleged Maddrey repeatedly demanded sex from her “in exchange for overtime opportunities in the workplace.”
Maddrey resigned late Friday as the complaint was filed, sparking a massive shakeup in the department’s upper ranks.
In the wake of the scandal, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch removed Chief of Internal Affairs Miguel Iglesias from his post over the weekend.
Barry Williams/ New York Daily News
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
On Friday, 10 officers assigned to the Internal Affairs Bureau — including two lieutenants, two sergeants, and five detectives — were moved to other posts as a rare purge of the bureau continued, documents shared with the Daily News shows.
Adams never mentioned Maddrey or the scandal in his directive, which now tasks the NYPD, FDNY, DOC and DSNY commissioners to “personally review the top overtime earners in their respective agencies, at least quarterly, to ensure that overtime is being distributed equitably and to avoid potential abuse,” he wrote.
“The city is facing fiscal constraints which require the ongoing monitoring of agency spending,” Adams noted. “Control of overtime is important for good government and overtime should be approved only in those instances where it is warranted and appropriate.”
Overtime spending has run rampant in the NYPD during Adams’ administration and topped $1 billion in the fiscal year 2023, which ended July 1.
In a City Council hearing in March, former Police Commissioner Edward Caban admitted that, eight months into the fiscal year before the start of the summer, the department had blown its overtime budget by more than $100 million — more than 50% over their projections.
At the time, Caban said the overtime money was being used to put more cops into the subway system to fight an uptick in crime underground.
Despite the rampant overtime spending, Adams exempted the NYPD, the FDNY and the Sanitation Department from previous rounds of citywide budget cuts that had drastic impacts on some other agencies, including libraries, which were forced to eliminate universal Sunday service as a result.
City Council Finance Committee Chair Justin Brannan said Adams only took action against the NYPD’s overtime spending after the allegations against Maddrey surfaced.
“It shouldn’t take a scandal to get everyone’s attention,” Brannan (D-Brooklyn) said. “The Council has been demanding answers on NYPD budget mismanagement for years only to get excuses about protests and parades. Sometimes [the NYPD] has gone so far as to blame the Council for their runaway overtime spending!
“This isn’t a rank and file issue,” Brannan said. “This comes from a culture at the top.”
In her complaint, Epps and her attorney Eric Sanders allege that Maddrey and other NYPD executives were able to edit the list of top overtime earners to “hide the true number of overtime abusers throughout former Police Commissioner Edward Caban’s administration and the current administration.”
Top overtime earners who never appeared on the overtime list included Maddrey, new Chief of Department John Chell and NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry, the complaint notes.
A Daily News report published in November named Epps as the highest-paid member of the NYPD with a salary of $406,515 — $118,203 more than the $285,313 former Commissioner Edward Caban made in fiscal year 2024.
Epps’ overtime immediately raised eyebrows since she worked in Maddrey’s office as support staff and wasn’t in the field or responding to emergencies.
The News’ report also outlined the 1,600 hours of overtime Epps claimed, earning her $204,000. Sources said the department would audit Epps’ pay, and the lieutenant was suspended on Dec. 18, two days after she put in for retirement.
Epps’ resignation came seven months short of her 20th year at the department when she would earn full retirement benefits.
A News analysis of her salary shows her pension could be at least $150,000 a year tax-free and possibly close to $232,000.
In light of the allegations against Maddrey, Sanders fired off a letter to Commissioner Tisch’s office, demanding that Epps be reinstated so she can retire as she planned.
Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News
Former NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
The Manhattan district attorney’s office and the city Department of Investigation are probing the sexual abuse and harassment allegations, as well as claims that lists of overtime earners had been altered, officials said.
At an NYPD promotion ceremony on Monday, Commissioner Tisch said she won’t accept anything less than “ethical leadership” on the heels of sex harassment allegations.
“Leadership is the cornerstone of the NYPD — good, strong, ethical leadership,” Tisch said during the ceremony at NYPD headquarters.
Despite the directive to reduce overtime spending, Adams made it clear that nothing will prohibit “the use of overtime to meet emergency service demands.”
If an event or incident like the massive amount of protests following the death of George Floyd presents itself, agencies are expected to reduce “non-emergency overtime” to compensate “if such emergency costs cause an agency to overspend against its plan without prior notification,” Adams said.
With Rocco Parascandola
