The Maine State Police has continued to incur record overtime spending, a trend that intensified in recent years when a “perfect storm” of factors worsened staffing shortages and boosted workloads for officers on special assignments, according to a top official and an analysis of payroll data.
Last year, the state’s largest police force paid out nearly $8.5 million in overtime, a 29 percent increase from five years ago. On average, troopers made $27,636 in overtime — up from $20,446 in 2019 — and more than 40 percent of officers earned more than that.
The maximum payouts also reached record highs. Four troopers earned more than $100,000 on top of their regular wages. Previously, only one officer, Jonathan Russell, had ever made more than six figures in overtime, when he made $114,432 in 2022. Last year, Russell once again earned the most overtime of any officer when he took home $127,600, bringing his total earnings in 2023 to $212,433.
Maine’s largest police force has wracked up significant overtime for at least a decade in order to cover staffing vacancies and special assignments, such as investigating murders or monitoring construction sites.
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But the rate of overtime has slightly increased in recent years, payroll data show, which Lt. Col. Brian Scott, the agency’s deputy chief, attributed in part to societal factors that exacerbated the agency’s staffing woes. Troopers are paid time-and-a-half to work overtime hours, so increases in troopers’ base pay over time account for some of the reason that spending has risen over time.
However, Scott said he sees signs that staffing levels will improve, which could stabilize, if not reverse, the number of overtime hours officers are working. One reason, he said, is that public support for law enforcement is rebounding.
In the years after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020 in Minnesota, the state police found it more challenging to recruit officers in a climate of heightened public scrutiny of law enforcement practices, Scott said. Meanwhile, veteran officers, feeling demoralized by plunging respect for their profession, also choose to retire, thinning the agency’s ranks even further, Scott said. Maine’s police academy also closed temporarily during the pandemic, making it difficult to train officers and replenish the department’s ranks.
“We really had a perfect storm,” Scott said.
The agency, budgeted in July 2023 for 335 sworn officers, had 59 vacancies at that time.
“Those were really rough years for my colleagues and myself, with a lot of lack of support for law enforcement,” Scott said, recalling one detective who quit because his wife, a teacher, felt embarrassed that she was married to a trooper.
In addition to vacancies, specialized assignments have created more work for the agency, even as it has rolled back its coverage of rural areas, Scott said.
For instance, there has been an uptick in requests for officers to help escort vehicles transporting massive windmill blades. One installation in Searsport resulted in more than 800 escorts for a single troop this past year, Scott said. (Outside entities reimburse some of the agency’s overtime spending, including about $1.6 million of payroll costs last year, Scott said.)
Homicides, which are investigated by the state police except for in Portland and Bangor, have also grown more time consuming due to the proliferation of digital evidence. Detectives are filing more warrants for video and social media evidence, which can take hundreds of hours to review, Scott said.
Some troopers have taken advantage of the past few years to make as much money as they can, in a move likely geared toward boosting their retirement pay, the deputy chief said. Their retirement is based on an average of the three years when they made their greatest earnings.
Many of the older police officers who recently retired were more likely to volunteer for overtime. So now, in addition to having more opportunity to work extra hours, there is also less competition to do so, Scott explained.
“I talk to them, and they say, ‘I get all the overtime I want now,’” Scott said of the highest earners. “They are trying to get those top three years, and one way is to get their overtime.”
However, Scott said that for the first time in years, the state police agency has seen an increase in applications, which should help lower overtime spending. If the agency’s current rate of hiring keeps up, Scott said he believes vacancies could drop into the low teens by next August.
The agency swore in six new officers earlier this month, bringing its total vacancies to 41 out of an increased complement of 351. However, officers can’t immediately hit the road after they’re hired. In addition to the force’s vacancies, another 25 officers are in various stages of training and won’t be able to take on full-time duties until next spring, Scott said.
A few factors are likely helping with recruitment. First, salary increases for state employees went into effect this year, amounting to about a 13 percent raise for troopers and giving the state police an edge over other departments. The opportunity to specialize has always lured officers to join the state police, but its pay had been middle of the road, Scott said.
The agency also changed how it runs its advanced training program for new recruits. Previously, new troopers had to undergo a 10-week residential program, designed to induce stress and inoculate officers to the pressures of the job. For newly certified police officers, the extra state police schooling took place on top of an 18-week basic training at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro. But the extra requirement used to deter officers who were already certified and joining from other police agencies who didn’t want to leave their families all over again.
Now, new hires are only required to complete a six-week non-residential program, more similar to typical in-service training, Scott said.
And anecdotally, Scott said he believes that public support for law enforcement is improving, an observation that aligns with the results of a Gallup poll this summer. More people have offered to pay for his coffee or lunch when he is out in uniform recently, he said, and there seem to be fewer “anti-law enforcement” bills in the Maine Legislature. A few new hires were inspired to join the state police after the mass shooting in Lewiston last year, but, in general, more people appear interested in becoming police officers, he said.
“We are starting to feel that we have support from our policy makers, leadership and the society that we police,” Scott said. In turn, people considering a career in policing are more likely to think of it as a noble one.
“It’s not perfect. There are things we need to do better, and I think we are doing better. But I also think we are seeing support for it, and I think that is having a significant impact,” he said.
Reporter Callie Ferguson may be reached at [email protected].
