Large Overtime Payments to Amherst Police Raise Concerns about Budget Priorities and Oversight
Entrance to Amherst Police Department. Photo: Art Keene
By Art and Maura Keene
Each year, the Town of Amherst publishes a Gross Wages Report. It is a detailed breakdown of employee hours and compensation across departments townwide (not including the schools).
The FY25 Report shares some concerning data. While there might be a reasonable explanation, the number of police hours reported and the amounts paid are reminiscent of the MA State Police overtime scandal.
The town’s own data show 16 police officers logging 4,013–5,192 hours/year (that’s 79-100 hours/week every week annually). These weekly work averages are highly irregular. In fact, the number of hours reported is double or more than double that of standard full-time employment (2,080 hours).
Dispatch staff housed in the Police Department building and under their oversight, also show signs of extreme overtime reporting (and/or potential overwork), although not as extreme as seen in the police salaries data.
The data show this isn’t an issue specific to this particular year. The FY24 dataset presents similar overtime patterns with almost as many police and dispatch employees logging 4,000–5,000 hours.This warrants scrutiny as well.
Outside of the police building, there is a striking discrepancy across departments. Even those with 24/7 services—Fire, DPW, and EMS—top out around 53–55 hours/week, which are much more typical averages for these types of roles. Our neighboring towns (Belchertown, Easthampton, South Hadley) also do not log these kinds of police hours.
On its surface, it belies belief to imagine this many officers working to this extreme. It raises concerns about patterns and accuracy of time reporting within the department. The data call into question oversight in the time-approval process. With shift supervisors among those logging extreme hours, concerns include who is approving these schedules. Is there an independent review?
If by some outside chance these numbers are accurate, the data then raise serious concerns about officer fatigue and safety as well as legal questions in terms of employment rights. Burnout, impaired judgment, and driving fatigue could pose risks to both officers and the public. They may violate federal and state labor laws and/or union agreements. Union contracts have a requirement for a total of five officers per shift. The staffing math doesn’t support the need for this level of overtime either.
In any case, it brings up a question of our spending priorities. The salaries of the officers in question range are incredibly high for public servants. The highest-paid officer earned over $212,305—more than the Town Manager and the governor earned last year. The average salary of these 16 officers is $120,622.15.
Amherst has a relatively small population and three colleges with their own police forces. Violent crime is uncommon. Given this reality, why would we need so many officers working double-time year round, particularly at so high a cost to the taxpayer?
From an equity perspective, this exacerbates a town budget where disparities between administrative/support, education, and other public safety roles are stark. APD salaries consume a large portion of wage expenditures. This past year’s budget scrutiny and layoffs at the schools, CRESS, and other departments, as well as a municipal hiring freeze, contrast sharply with unchecked police overtime. The situation resembles past state police overtime scandals, where the reasoning (being short-staffed) was found by the Justice Department to be untrue.
The lack of scrutiny from the Town Council` and Finance Committee is troubling. Are they asleep at the wheel of town budget oversight?
Town Officials Respond
The Indy reached out to Police Chief Gabe Ting, Town Manager Paul Bockelman, and Finance Committee Chair Cathy Schoen for comment. As of press time, Ting has yet to comment.
Schoen replied that she had reached out to the Town Manager in early August with questions raised by a constituent about police compensation and has yet to receive a response. She provided a copy of the town’s contract with the police supervisors union, noting that compensation rates are quite high for detail work and suggesting that overtime work might be recorded in terms of more hours than those actually worked.
Bockelman provided the following response:
“The short answer is that the way the Town’s payroll system works is that it uses “hours” as the unit of measure for determining pay. It does NOT – necessarily – mean those are the actual number of hours worked. To state that would be inaccurate.
For instance, some employees get paid a “differential” – additional pay – for working the overnight shift. This differential is added to the pay by adding hours to the pay. As an example, if someone works 80 hours, they may also earn additional hours in “shift differential” which is added to the hours worked…so, they may show 120 hours but will have only worked 80.
In addition, if someone works overtime – hours beyond their normal work shifts – they get paid time-and-a-half, which would be added to their pay. So, working one additional 8-hour shift would generate 12 hours worked in our payroll system. Overtime is most often utilized when an officer is requested or required to fill in a shift to maintain our minimum staffing or when an officer is required to attend court to testify. These are hours worked over and above the normal 40 hour work week.
Another example is paid details which are treated the same way. These details are akin to “second jobs” where outside groups will hire police officers for special work outside their normal work hours. The most frequent employers are utilities like Eversource and Verizon. All outside work details for police officers require the permission of the Police Chief who decides how to distribute details to ensure officers are not overextended.. These private details may only be done during an employee’s off-duty time. No officer is permitted to work more than 16 hours within a 24 hour period.
Also, when we hire a new police officer, an experienced officer is designated the “field training officer” responsible for training the new police officer. These field training officers receive a stipend for taking on this additional responsibility. These stipends are recorded – again – as hours but are not actually additional hours worked.
While this most commonly shows up in our Dispatch and Police, there are provisions for DPW, Fire, and SEIU (Facilities) to get paid a shift differential and overtime.
The hours computed will include regular forty hours per week, overtime worked, outside work details, minimum call back pay, and court pay. The pay chart does not provide this breakdown, therefore, at face value, the number of hours don’t appear to add up without an explanation. “
Bockelman seems to be saying that while the numbers may look alarming, they are likely an artifact of bookkeeping. His hypothetical examples support this interpretation, but he does not offer an analysis or access to source data that would allow us to assess whether we need not be alarmed. This nonchalance about this alarming appearance stands in contrast to the Town Council’s micromanaging of the school budgets (see also for example here, here and here) where well-documented needs and expenses have been subject to ongoing scrutiny and challenge.
Below is a list of the 16 people on the police payroll who logged over 4000 hours in 2025 (in descending order of compensation received).
FY25 Officers logging over 4,000 hours
- LANGE TODD $212,305.82 4,392.50 hrs
- AROCHO JESUS $172,341.47 4,013.50 hrs
- GALLAGHER SCOTT $140,322.81 4,526.00 hrs
- GRIFFIN JANET $134,065.46 4,579.50 hrs
- PICARDI MATTEO $126,893.06 5,192.50 hrs
- CLARK THOMAS $124,996.89 4,485.00 hrs
- FRYDRYK MATTHEW $119,844.58 4,796.00 hrs
- THURSTON SCOTT $112,230.32 4,477.00 hrs
- DAMON JESSICA $111,354.76 4,494.00 hrs
- CORSETTI DOMINICK $110,913.26 4,473.50 hrs
- BULLOUGH ANTHONY $105,296.44 4,724.00 hrs
- SHEA CONNOR 2025 $95,443.20 4,555.00 hrs
- WORTHLEY STEPHEN $91,631.20 4,482.00 hrs
- WORTHLEY JOSEPH $91,410.97 4,528.62 hrs
- SANTOS JOSHUA 2025 $91,283.63 4,594.50 hrs
- COBLYN ANDREW 89,620.45 4,300.00 hrs
In years of law practice that began with criminal defense, plus years of having both a former Amherst police officer and a police officer’s spouse for law partners, I learned the following about police work:
(1) They literally put their lives on the line with every traffic stop and domestic abuse call.
(2) The job may require making a split-second life or death decision that will be dissected at length by lawyers and pundits. A mistake can cost one’s job and even result in criminal prosecution.
(3) Every time a police officer leaves for a shift, loved ones can only pray s/he will return safely. With a daughter who for many years was a first responder on the streets of New York City, I know that gnawing fear only too well.
(4) They wait for our 911 call in police cruisers at all hours in all kinds of weather, with us expecting them to arrive in a very few minutes, ready to handle our emergency.
(5) We sleep cozy in our beds at night and walk the streets safely because they are out there, wearing vests they know are not really bullet proof, armed with side arms that are no match for many illegal automatic weapons.
After reading this article, it’s clear the bigger issue is a serious staffing shortage. Officers are being stretched thin with mandatory overtime—something most other professions don’t face. Who has FORCED OT, Amherst Police do! On top of that, mental health-related calls are on the rise and take significantly longer to handle.
I’m honestly saddened that a journalist in a highly educated area like Hampshire County would try to draw a connection between Amherst PD’s overtime and the Mass State Police OT scandal—especially when there’s no evidence to support such a comparison. It feels like an unfair distraction from the real challenges facing local departments.
I have deep respect for officers working forced OT, handling high-stress calls, and raising families. We need to focus on hiring more officers, retaining the ones we have, and reducing burnout—not casting doubt where it isn’t warranted
I do expect more from a journalist.
“While there might be a reasonable explanation, the number of police hours reported and the amounts paid are reminiscent of the MA State Police overtime scandal.” Isn’t it your due diligence as reporters to find out what that reasonable explanation might be before publishing an inflammatory hit piece? Isn’t it entirely possible that, due to having new officers in the academy, existing officers have to pull overtime? Or perhaps because there are only 3 patrol officers on at any given time, one person could have been out forcing other officers to pick up more shifts? You’ve published names and salaries, but you only did half your homework.
If we’re going to talk about how town employees spend their time, how about:
– Sept. 2: Responders facilitated the use of a conference room phone to make administrative and medical phone calls.
– Sept. 5: Elderly person had difficulty using cell phone; Responder helped him turn off airplane mode and explained how to do it.
– Sept. 17: Took part in Rolling Green pizza party and resource fair; shared information about CRESS and made slime with children.
Does that justify 45-50k a year?
This list looks to be patrol officers and supervisors which is known for long hours due to nights and weekends.
Not a fan of what this post is insinuating.
The authors acknowledge that there may be a reasonable explanation. Whatever the reason, the Amherst situation is an anomaly, and at time-and-a-half for overtime, an expensive one.
I do not have the breakdown for our APD hours per officer but I am going to wager that many of the overtime hours that this blog is concerned over are “detail” hours. Why does this matter for the sake of this article? Because detail hours are paid by the person, group, entity etc who needed the officer detail for their event, construction project, road race (run/ cycle etc) and for town construction, tree trimming along the roads etc… Every time an officer is waving you on while trucks take up 1/2 the roads to avoid head on collisions, many a job/ construction site that needs road access or assistance for pedestrian safety, or a large scale event on the common, all need detail officers on site. Doubly important to these Detail “overtime hours” is that the TOWN of Amherst MAKES 10% off of each of these hours. The officer makes a solid volunteer wage while the town benefits directly. This is not tax payer money this is the individual, company, or organization who pays the TOWN for the service that our APD can provide to ensure we are all safe on our roads, sidewalks and crosswalks, at large events or running a race on streets. I am sure once the returning Town CFO is settled back into his seat he would be able to run a pretty quick spreadsheet to show the Indy if APD is indeed over budget or if they are on target with overtime paid from outside the Tax Base and actually making a few bucks with the 10% that goes directly to the Town. ALL of this to say this was some shoddy “investigating” and also to back up and support what Antia Carriere stated above, she is correct our AFD, APD, EMS, and DPW are woefully understaffed, and ABSOLUTELY spot on Attorney Pill. Our APD are someones sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, they are members of our community and while Amherst is indeed blessedly safe in comparison to other areas of MA perhaps we can all take a moment to consider that our safety is here because of our AFD, APD and EMS teams and give a little support to the men and women who go to work every day with a much higher threat level than most of us reading this today ever will.
No one is at their best if they are working 80 hours a week.
While the evidence presented doesn’t necessarily indicate malfeasance by the officers named, jumping to the conclusion that something is amiss here is not unwarranted.
Would it not be cheaper and safer to hire more officers than to routinely require officers to work hundreds or thousands of hours OT?
@jefflee- look at surrounding local town’s police departments overtime; the problem is not an anomaly!
Palmer – quick glance 2 patrol officers @ 120k (2023)
Belchertown- quick glance 9 patrol officers @ 100k + (2024)
Monson- 6 patrol officers @ 100k+ (2020)
60-70k base salary, the rest is OT & as someone previous pointed out most OT is detailed that are reimbursed by the company hiring them.
This is not an anomaly!
Thanks, Anita Carriere, for the info on other towns’ use of overtime to compensate police. I applaud your approaching the question as a data-based critic and not a reactionary.
Gabrielle Gould’s point that some pay may be reimbursed by outside organizations and the town manager’s explanation that the hours are not real hours but have been adjusted to simplify bookkeeping are also worth weighing.
But I question whether there may be a more economical way to meet the demands on the APD. Could CRESS and/or civilian flaggers be used to better effect?
@jefflee- the details directing traffic is reimbursed to the town by the company doing the work.
This all goes back to employee retention & hiring. If they lose there OT w/base pay 60-70k; ~30% taxes, ~11% mandated retirement – I have to be honest I wouldn’t put my life on the line daily for 30k year take home!
If the payroll system regarding the police department is so complicated, misleading, and problematic, would it also be so for any other department where overtime is often necessary or required?
If so, how does that explain that overtime amounts of some in the police department are vastly beyond their “regular annual pay rates,” let alone those in their department and others?
If not, why not?