SFPD violated the rules on overtime, repeatedly -- but they still got their money:

The San Francisco Police Department decided on its own to violate the rules limiting public employee overtime, the Board of Supes learned Tuesday. [...]

At that hearing, some of the supes questioned why SFPD was allowing officers to work as private rent-a-cops, on OT pay, for a lot more than the 500 annual hours that the city currents sets as the limit on extra work.

SFPD also defied a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Human Resources that barred cops who had called in sick more than twice in six months to work in the private market, under the so-called 10B program. [...]

Walton said that he's been on the board for seven budget cycles, and every year, the cops have been unable to property estimate their overtime and budget for it. I might be less charitable; one could argue that SFPD doesn't put all its projected OT in the budget because the department brass assume that the supes will just approve supplemental appropriations later. As they have, for seven years.

"We'll never have change if we keep giving them a blank check," Walton said. "We hold everyone accountable except this department. [...]

Then support it they did, 9-2, with only Walton and Fielder in opposition.

SFPD says its officers working as security guards are 'out in the community.' But mostly, they're downtown:

Businesses on Market Street, like Salesforce and Twitter, for instance, were frequent customers, as were Union Square stores like Macy's and Victoria's Secret. Officers were also spread out to a handful of retail spots elsewhere in the city, chiefly Walgreens, Target and Safeway.

Walgreens, in fact, was by far the largest user of private security hours from police officers between 2018 and 2023, and many of the blips that appear away from the downtown core are Walgreens stores. (The large bubble in Golden Gate Park? The Outside Lands music festival.) [...]

Officers working private security are considered on-duty and can make arrests. They must wear police uniforms and their badge, and carry department-issued firearms. And they make time-and-a-half: At an officer's starting salary, that's $83.49 an hour. By the time an officer is a sergeant, it's $123.54 an hour, and for a lieutenant, it's $141.06. [...]

Officers might prefer to work private security to shifts in their district stations. The fact that they can easily call out sick and, that very same day, work a private security gig, a practice that was documented extensively in a city audit last year, is a major problem, he said. [...] The program, Walton added, "is a big win for corporations, for private businesses, for overtime abuses, and not for the entire city."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.