TTPS racks up $3.7B overtime bill in nine years; manpower shortage blamed

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­[email protected]

Be­tween 2017 and 2026, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has ac­cu­mu­lat­ed over $3.7 bil­lion in over­time for its 7,884 of­fi­cers.

While the TTPS’s over­time ex­pen­di­ture for its month­ly-paid of­fi­cers was es­ti­mat­ed at $400 mil­lion in this year’s fis­cal pack­age, an ad­di­tion­al $120 mil­lion was re­quest­ed dur­ing last week’s Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view to pay out­stand­ing over­time to law en­force­ment of­fi­cers for two pre­vi­ous years.

This fig­ure could be the largest over­time bill for the TTPS, as the coun­try grap­ples with an ex­tend­ed State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Last year, tax­pay­ers spent a re­vised es­ti­mate of $411 mil­lion on over­time for of­fi­cers, dur­ing a year that record­ed 359 mur­ders, the low­est since 2011 un­der Gue­var­ro’s watch, who marked one year in of­fice on June 17.

A month af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice, Gue­var­ro ad­vised the Gov­ern­ment to de­clare an SoE af­ter re­ceiv­ing cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion about a crime syn­di­cate in­volv­ing prison of­fi­cers.

The TTPS utilised the ex­tra pow­ers un­der the SoE to re­move crim­i­nals from the streets and re­duce se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes from 3,413 in 2025 to 2,397 in 2026 for the same pe­ri­od.

Vi­o­lent crimes dropped from 1,219 in 2025 to 829, a 32 per cent na­tion­al re­duc­tion.

There was al­so a 32 to 41 per cent re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes in six di­vi­sions.

A break­down of the over­time bills in the ten years showed that the TTPS ex­pend­ed $418 mil­lion for its of­fi­cers in 2024, mark­ing it as the dead­liest year in the coun­try’s his­to­ry with 615 mur­ders.

The low­est over­time paid was in 2019, 2020 and 2021, with po­lice of­fi­cers pock­et­ing $311 mil­lion, $313 mil­lion and $318 mil­lion, re­spec­tive­ly.

In 2022, the over­time bill rose to $357.4 mil­lion, co­in­cid­ing with 605 record­ed mur­ders, the sec­ond-high­est to­tal to date.

An over­time pay­out of $377.8 mil­lion was made in 2023.

Po­lice of­fi­cers col­lect­ed $396 mil­lion and $366 mil­lion in 2017 and 2018, re­spec­tive­ly.

In the 2026 bud­get, the TTPS was al­lo­cat­ed $2.6 bil­lion to pay its sanc­tioned strength of po­lice of­fi­cers, main­tain law and or­der, pros­e­cute of­fend­ers and pre­vent and de­tect crime.

The TTPS has nine di­vi­sions and 18 branch­es, squads and units.

On Fri­day, June 12, dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment, MP for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Stu­art Young chal­lenged Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der over the pro­posed in­crease in po­lice over­time spend­ing, ques­tion­ing whether the fig­ure was jus­ti­fied and how it com­pared to salary costs.

Alexan­der said the fig­ure had to be viewed in con­text, adding that it was ac­tu­al­ly low­er than the pre­vi­ous year and re­flect­ed wider pres­sures with­in the ser­vice.

Young com­pared the over­time fig­ure to the TTPS’s $1.2 bil­lion salary costs.

“So you are telling the pop­u­la­tion that the po­lice ser­vice is run­ning an over­time bill of $500 mil­lion, where­as the nor­mal salary is just $1.2 bil­lion?” Young asked.

On Mon­day, Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­scribed the TTPS’s $500 mil­lion over­time bill for 2026 as “noth­ing but a scan­dal” in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“You can­not have $500 mil­lion of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey be­ing burnt up in over­time.”

He said some­thing must be wrong for the TTPS’s man­age­ment to ap­prove such a sig­nif­i­cant over­time bill.

“Is it as a re­sult of the SoE that has been in place for al­most a year? Is it that po­lice of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to ac­cu­mu­late huge amounts of mon­ey or hours in over­time be­cause of ex­tend­ed hours?” asked Gon­za­les.

Gon­za­les, a for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, won­dered if po­lice of­fi­cers are spend­ing so many hours work­ing and claim­ing over­time.

“You have to ask your­self what is the state of mind and the qual­i­ty of life for a lot of our law en­force­ment.”

The Op­po­si­tion MP said if one or­gan­i­sa­tion is ac­cu­mu­lat­ing half a bil­lion dol­lars in over­time, we need to go deep­er.

“Is it that we have abused the over­time?”

Giv­en that the cur­rent mur­der rate had al­ready reached 175, Gon­za­les said Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans need to scru­ti­nise the over­time fig­ures.

“We need to ask whether or not we are get­ting val­ue for mon­ey be­cause the de­tec­tion rate in some di­vi­sions was poor.”

When he was ap­point­ed po­lice com­mis­sion­er in 2018, Gary Grif­fith said he root­ed out over­time cor­rup­tion in the TTPS.

The for­mer top cop said a group of 300 of­fi­cers claimed over­time for work they did not do.

These false claims were signed off by cor­po­rals, sergeants, in­spec­tors and even an ACP.

“So every­body was get­ting a cut. And that is where I de­cid­ed to mi­cro­man­age it.”

Grif­fith claimed this was the rea­son why he was re­moved from of­fice.

“The cor­rupt el­e­ments in the Po­lice Ser­vice…there are rogue el­e­ments in the Po­lice Ser­vice…I mean… it is a small per­cent­age.”

These of­fi­cers, he said, were tak­ing home as much as $80,000 a month in over­time for years.

In a bid to put an end to the cor­rup­tion, Grif­fith asked of­fi­cers to un­der­go poly­graph and drug test­ing.

Some of­fi­cers were al­so trans­ferred.

This led to of­fi­cers push­ing back.

“I stepped on many big toes in the Po­lice Ser­vice. And be­cause of that, that is where those of­fi­cers for­mu­late a plan to tell the gov­ern­ment (PNM) that there was firearms cor­rup­tion.”

His ac­tions and in­ter­ven­tions re­duced the TTPS’s an­nu­al over­time bill from $400 mil­lion to $300 mil­lion.

The 100 po­lice sta­tions un­der Grif­fith’s con­trol were al­so giv­en an over­time cap.

Grif­fith said he had all boots on the ground dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and still man­aged to slash the over­time bill.

“Dur­ing COVID, their (du­ties) were even more than what they had dur­ing the SoE,” Grif­fith point­ed out.

A 2019 Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee re­port on the ex­pen­di­ture and in­ter­nal con­trols of the TTPS iden­ti­fied abuse of over­time du­ties by po­lice of­fi­cers, amount­ing to $33 mil­lion month­ly.

The re­port stat­ed that di­vi­sion­al com­man­ders be­came ac­count­able for as­sign­ing over­time du­ties to of­fi­cers, there­by slash­ing the month­ly over­time bill to $25 mil­lion with­out neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, ASP Ish­mael Pitt, wel­comed the sup­ple­men­tary al­lo­ca­tion for po­lice of­fi­cers who have been work­ing dur­ing the pro­longed SoE with lim­it­ed man­pow­er.

In an SoE en­vi­ron­ment, Pitt said, the tasks and de­mands on an of­fi­cer in­crease.

“At this point in time, we are un­der stress. We trust that with­in the short­est pos­si­ble time, we would be able to come up to that strength to make it more man­age­able both for the or­gan­i­sa­tion and the in­di­vid­ual of­fi­cer.”

While the TTPS is mov­ing to bring new of­fi­cers in­to the ser­vice, Pitt said the cur­rent strength has been “dou­bling up” on du­ties to get the job done.

Dou­bling an of­fi­cer’s du­ties, Pitt said, can lead to burnout.

“It places man­age­ment in a po­si­tion where care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion must be giv­en to our hu­man re­sources. We have seen in re­cent times, po­lice of­fi­cers even tak­ing their lives, in or­der to man­age.”

He said of­fi­cers who feel burned out, over­whelmed or un­able to cope can ap­ply for leave, reach out to their so­cial work­ers or con­tact the as­so­ci­a­tion for help.

“What we have large­ly recog­nised is that a lot of of­fi­cers may not nec­es­sar­i­ly feel com­fort­able re­port­ing what­ev­er cir­cum­stance they’re ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, for what­ev­er rea­son.”

Asked if cit­i­zens were get­ting val­ue for mon­ey with the bil­lions spent on over­time, Pitt said, con­sid­er­ing the TTPS has been op­er­at­ing with a short­age of of­fi­cers, those on the force would have to go the ex­tra mile.

“I think, giv­en the ca­pac­i­ty of the ser­vice at this point in time, strength-wise, cit­i­zens are get­ting val­ue for mon­ey. Be­cause I shiv­er to think, had it not been for the op­por­tu­ni­ty of po­lice of­fi­cers be­ing able to dou­ble up and treat with the sit­u­a­tion as it comes, how things would have been. We would have re­al­ly been in a dras­tic sit­u­a­tion, much worse than what we think we are in at this point in time.”

How­ev­er, Pitt said there is room for im­prove­ment with ap­pro­pri­ate staffing.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said the TTPS short­fall of of­fi­cers has been con­tribut­ing to its over­time bill.

He said the TTPS has been con­duct­ing sev­er­al op­er­a­tions dur­ing the SoE, which would in­cur over­time costs for the ser­vice.

“When you put those two things to­geth­er (staff short­fall and SoE)… It’s go­ing to be a high over­time bill.”

He said hir­ing re­cruits can cut the over­time bill while eas­ing the strain on of­fi­cers who have been work­ing be­yond 40 hours per week.

In May, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der an­nounced a phased, five-year re­cruit­ment dri­ve to hire 2,316 new po­lice of­fi­cers. He said the ex­pan­sion would in­crease the strength of the TTPS from 7,884 to 10,200 of­fi­cers to im­prove re­sponse times and po­lice vis­i­bil­i­ty across the coun­try.

At the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, where Seep­er­sad works, he said that train­ing a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer for the cam­pus is around $77,000.

“And train­ing at the acad­e­my is far more ex­pen­sive than what our of­fi­cers on cam­pus re­ceive.”

Hir­ing and train­ing, he said, is a slow process.

He cit­ed a 2024 re­port on the Cost of Crime and Vi­o­lence in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean com­piled by the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank, which showed that for every mur­der com­mit­ted in T&T, it costs the State US$350,000.

He said, from re­mov­ing the vic­tim’s body to crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors col­lect­ing and analysing ev­i­dence, bal­lis­tic test­ing, the au­top­sy and po­lice of­fi­cers con­duct­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tions, there is a heavy price tag at­tached.

He said if a sus­pect is ar­rest­ed, charged and im­pris­oned, the State has to shoul­der the le­gal and prison costs.

“When you start to think of crime hap­pen­ing in the hun­dreds… from mur­ders, to sex­u­al of­fences, rob­beries, home in­va­sions…every of­fence…the cost of crime far out­weighs any­thing you could pay the TTPS. Peo­ple might watch it and say, wait, it’s so much mon­ey. Let me tell you, you’re still get­ting plen­ty val­ue for mon­ey.”

Seep­er­sad said one has to look at the over­time bill to de­ter­mine if it is high or not.

On the is­sue of the large over­time bill the TTPS had so far racked up, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, in re­sponse to ques­tions by Guardian Me­dia last Thurs­day, said that the $120 mil­lion re­quest for sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing was “to pay over­time that was left out­stand­ing for 2024 and 2025…so it was to pay bills.”

Look­ing at the cur­rent fis­cal pe­ri­od, he said: “We don’t know at this point in time what the 2026 over­time bill will look like as yet.”

He ex­plained that po­lice of­fi­cers have a six-month pe­ri­od to sub­mit their over­time claims, which means the TTPS “will not know the full fi­nan­cial im­pact of the over­time bill as it re­lates to 2025/2026.”

Gue­var­ro said with an an­nu­al over­time bill bor­der­ing on $400 mil­lion, “the cost to re­cruit and pay these of­fi­cers is around 60 to 65 per cent of the an­nu­al over­time bills,” stat­ing that “it makes more busi­ness sense to hire po­lice of­fi­cers to pre­vent the cur­rent of­fi­cers from be­ing over­worked and over­bur­dened and re­duce the over­time bill.”

Out of 7,884 of­fi­cers in the Po­lice Ser­vice, Gue­var­ro said they op­er­ate with a strength of be­tween 4,000 and 4,500 law en­force­ment of­fi­cers at any giv­en time, which is woe­ful­ly in­ad­e­quate.

He said the TTPS needs to in­crease its op­er­a­tional strength to 10,200.

2026 – Es­ti­mat­ed $500 M

2025 – Re­vised es­ti­mate $411 M

2024 – $418 M

2023 – $377.8 M

2022 – $357.4 M

2021 – $318 M

2020 – $313 M

2019 – $311 M

2018 – $366 M

2017 – $396 M

TTPS re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture:

2017 – $2.6 B

2018 – $2.1 B

2019 – $2.1 B

2020 – $2.3 B

2021 – $2.2 B

2022 – $2.3 B

2023 – $2.6 B

2024 - $2.9 B

2025 – $2.5 B