NYC council’s ‘new ‘How Many Stops’ rule for cops cost taxpayers $1.4M in overtime in just three months: officials

Pot, meet kettle.

Big Apple taxpayers shelled out more than $1.4 million in overtime in just three months for cops to fill out paperwork under the controversial “How Many Stops Act,” NYPD brass testified Monday under grilling by city lawmakers — who have consistently scrutinized police for their overtime costs.

“Some of my colleagues have shown to be unserious people, prioritizing political posturing over public safety,” said Councilman Bob Holden, one lawmaker who opposed the burdensome law.

“They criticize NYPD overtime spending while pushing legislation that adds excessive paperwork, costing taxpayers nearly $1.5 million and 18,000 overtime hours in just one quarter,” said Holden (D-Queens).

The law, which requires New York’s Finest to file reports for even the briefest encounters with the community, is proving costly — tying up cops at their precincts for hours after their shifts, high-ranking department officials testified at a City Council hearing.

“We do have an overtime code for How Many Stops,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Michael Gerber told the council’s Public safety committee.

“The third quarter of 2024 it’s about 18,000 hours spent on the form by our police officers,” Gerber said. “That’s about $1.44 million in overtime. So, I think you’re not seeing it play out in response time.”

It takes a cop anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to file a report, according to sources.

Gerber and Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey were grilled over the program, which some critics contend has still left as many as 30% of police encounters undocumented.

Yet, questions of How Many Stops OT costs comes on the heels of constant bickering by city lawmakers over how much it costs to keep cops on the street fighting crime.

In March, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams blasted the NYPD amid estimates that overtime would hit $740 million this fiscal year, the highest in the last decade.

“I dare say that no other agency could possibly get away with this on the administrative side,” Adams said at the time. “I don’t think any other agency would be able to do this.”

That was before the council steamrolled the police paperwork proposal into law, requiring cops to spend hours filling out often paperwork for even passing encounters with residents.

“High cost, low value,” Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island), who voted against the controversial law, told The Post on Monday. “Sounds about right for a City Council idea.”

One police source added that the council majority simply didn’t do their homework.

“Ignorance or lack of common sense from the council not understanding the concept of time is money,” the source said.

Passed one year ago, the controversial piece of legislation was opposed by Mayor Eric Adams, who vetoed the measure — only to have the council override it and put the law into effect in July.

It requires police officers to file paperwork on three levels of encounters with New Yorkers, from “Level 1,” the least impactful, to a “Level 3” which typically ends with an arrest or other police action.

According to city statistics, there were more than 562,000 reportable encounters with civilians under the law, nearly all of them Level 1 encounters.

The data show that 98% of the paperwork officers were forced to file were at Level 1, which Maddrey told the council during Monday’s hearing included him asking an exhausted-looking runner during the New York City Marathon this year if he needed help.

Gerber said the NYPD convened “an executive-level working group” to make the task easier on cops, including the use of new electronic forms and additional training for officers.

“What we’ve done as part of our policy is we’ve given officers the choice,” Gerber told lawmakers. “For the Level 1 form they can fill it out essentially in real time… or you can do it at the end of your tour, based on body-worn camera, based on your activity log, based on your memory.

“That flexibility, we thought, was important for a variety of reasons,” he said. “Part of that is this is new and we’re just trying to figure out what works best. Part of it also is obviously depending on the command, the tour, it can vary very, very widely.

“There are places where officers are running from one critical call to the next,” Gerber said. “I think we are seeing a lot of officers doing it at end of tour.”

Despite pushing to enact the law, the liberal majority on the council has raised questions about past police initiatives like “stop and frisk,” which critics contend targeted minority residents.

On Monday, several lawmakers raised similar concerns about How Many Stops — while others even suggested doing away with the NYPD gang database.

“The NYPD’s continuing failure to ensure adequate supervision, adequate documentation for stops and discipline for still prevalent racial profiling means they are not in compliance with the court order to engage in constitutional policing,” Samah Sisay, attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the council.

“In fact, we have seen an increase in unconstitutional stops by the NYPD over the past few years.”

But for rank-and-file cops, the council only made their job even tougher.

“The City Council will on one hand pass legislation resulting in massive police overtime to fill out a form,” one frustrated law enforcement source told The Post.

“And with the other hand criticize excessive overtime while asking, ‘How can we prevent this?’ This is not a real legislative body,” the source said. “This is an episode of ‘The Office.’”

Additional reporting by Joe Marino