NYPD executives secretly embezzled tens of thousands of dollars in overtime pay last year, despite department rules prohibiting managers from collecting such compensation, the Post reported. I found out.
Deputy Chief of Operations Kaz Daughtry, the NYPD's liaison to City Hall, will earn $60,000 more than the department's top cop in 2023, thanks in part to a pay loophole that allowed her to earn time and a half. I earned a lot.
“Welcome, Mayor! [Eric] Adams’ NYPD,” one source quipped about how Daughtry was allowed to game the system.
“While lesser teams are scrutinizing overtime down to the minute, Kaz is parading and abusing the very system he claims to be fixing.”
The New York City Police Department's administrative guide prohibits manager-level employees from receiving pay for more than 80 hours a week.
But even after being promoted from first detective to assistant chief in July of last year, Daughtry continued to work hard as an OT.
His pay stub for the last full period of last year shows he worked nearly 80 extra hours between Dec. 9 and Dec. 22 and earned a bonus of just under $15,000.
He also paid an additional $1,000 in bonus pay for working the night shift, an extra benefit typically given to rank-and-file police officers forced to work the most undesirable shifts.
“What did he make?!” raged one former NYPD chief as the newspaper reviewed pay stubs obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
“No one should work overtime as an executive,'' the former police chief said, echoing the opinion of more than half a dozen police officials who were appalled by the extra pay.
Uniformed officers often point to pistol-toting civilian officers as typical of the NYPD's problematic culture under the Adams administration. There, the cowboy's antics and connections with his entourage seem to be more important than accomplishments.
“The fact that someone who has never supervised anyone in his life is now bringing in more money than the police chief is a laughable irony,” the first source raged.
Mr. Daughtry raised a total of $311,000 last year, compared to $251,000 for the NYPD commissioner, records show.
More than $141,000 of that was in overtime pay and another $5,600 in additional night shift pay. It's unclear how much of that was submitted between his July 17 promotion to a non-overtime civilian position and his last pay period of the year.
Daughtry declined to comment when contacted by the newspaper.
An NYPD spokesperson confirmed that he was allowed to continue receiving his detective's salary after his promotion, and that his overtime pay was completely prohibitive.
“As a result of this designation, his civil servant title of first-class detective remains unchanged, and he continues to receive the salary and overtime pay of a first-class detective,” the agency said in a statement.
It's unclear who approved the deal, but department officials and officials say it would have had to be signed by top officials, including Department Secretary Jeffrey Madrid and then-police chief Edward Caban.
Sources said the promotion also had the added bonus of forcing the Civilian Complaint Review Board to dismiss three outstanding cases against Mr. Daughtry. News of charges being dropped First reported by nonprofit newsroom City.
A protégé of Madrid, Daughtry has spent much of his 18-year career following the patriarch. Daughtry, then a detective, was transferred to One Police Plaza after Adams installed his longtime friend Madley to lead the NYPD. Officials previously told the Post that he “literally commands” the department from NYPD headquarters and defied then-police chief Keechant Sewell by giving him a tour of City Hall.
A few weeks after Sewell's sudden resignation, Caban, the new top cop, appointed Daughtry as assistant superintendent and made him Madrid's chief of staff and liaison to the mayor's office.
Since then, Daughtry has become one of the NYPD's most visible officers, along with Sergeant John Chell. He has also repeatedly earned praise from the mayor for expanding the NYPD's drone program.
Daughtry previously told the Post that he loves being on the street, working 24 hours a day and doing police work.
He was re-promoted to deputy chief of operations in February, but has since been ineligible for overtime, the police department confirmed.
