By: Ashley Hamilton | wdsu.com | January 15, 2026
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — According to a new report from the New Orleans Office of the Inspector General, between Jan. 1 and July 31, 2025, the New Orleans Police Department reported more than $260,000 overtime hours.
This cost the city more than $16.4 million.
“We found that the NOPD did not adhere to policy requirements for reporting overtime expenditures, as outlined in the Chief Administrative Officer policy,” Inspector General Ed Michel said.
That policy requires all departments to submit monthly overtime spending plans and work with the CAO when overtime costs exceed a certain threshold.
Michel said neither happened.
“This potentially led to some of the confusion among city leaders about the NOPD’s use of overtime, despite the lack of budgetary appropriations,” Michel said.
He admits that the majority of these overtime hours were essential for events like the New Year’s terror attack, the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras.
The report gives several recommendations to the NOPD, including working directly with city leaders to properly budget police overtime, tracking and verifying claimed overtime hours and providing transparency of police overtime through a public dashboard.
Metropolitan Crime Commission President Rafael Goyeneche said there needs to be a look at the prior mayor’s office and CAO, who, in 2025, allocated $56,000 for the NOPD’s overtime budget, compared to $47 million in 2024.
Goyeneche is confident that NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick will take this report and make the right adjustment, if she hasn’t already.
“The superintendent is making sure that the department is doing its share to tighten the belt. The police department was allocating about 120 hours of overtime per week per district. That’s been rationed down to 25 hours,” Goyeneche said.
Newly appointed CAO Joe Giarusso said his office will oversee the public safety departments moving forward.
“We are responsible for approving those and obviously seeing that in real time, which is exactly what you’re asking for, is to the benefit of all of us. Everybody’s going to be asking for more. But the question is, where are we in terms of our revenue, where do we serve our expenses,” Giarusso said.
Goyeneche saw that as the best move.
“The fact that the CAO is going to be personally shepherding this and reviewing all of the expanders’ expenditures is a healthy sign. And it’s something that the prior administration CAO should have done,” Goyneche said.
In a statement, NOPD Communications Director Reese Harper said:
“The New Orleans Police Department appreciates the Office of Inspector General’s review of our overtime practices, and we welcome the recommendations outlined in the letter.
In 2025, the City did not allocate a designated overtime line for NOPD, which made long-term planning and oversight more difficult. With a clear overtime budget now in place, thanks to Mayor Moreno and the City Council, we have defined guidelines and structure to manage overtime the right way.
NOPD will be a responsible steward of public dollars, strengthening oversight, documentation, and accountability while continuing to meet the public safety demands of New Orleans.”