jim daley & kiran misra

Full-time warehouse workers at the distribution center will be eligible to receive a starting wage of $18.00 per hour, while overnight shifts start at $19.50, according to Target’s employment application portal. Employees are eligible for 401(k) options after completing 1,000 hours of work.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for employment, as applicants must provide proof of legal eligibility to work.

Irma Morales, president and cofounder of Únete La Villita, said that Únete and other community organizations will continue to assemble protests in opposition of the Target distribution facility.

LVEJO and other community organizations plan to tally the number of diesel trucks at high-volume intersections near the distribution center with the hope of “trying to fi gure out ways to also work with those truck drivers” to prevent them from traveling through residential streets, said Tovar.

“Th e facility was designed for sustainability and safety—which will be the largest LEED-certifi ed building in the state,” Target said. “Th e development included major improvements to the surrounding area, including native landscaping, modifi ed intersections and redesigned street routes to limit traffi c in the neighborhood.”

Other activist demands include that solar panels be installed atop the distribution center to power residential homes in the area, air fi lters to be distributed to residences near the warehouse, and that Target commit to electrifying their truck fl eet within the fi rst year of operation in La Villita.

Target and Hilco are here to stay for now. But, a question still hangs in the balance: Will all of the jobs Target promised to off er to the community be provided to local residents? “Th ere's no guarantee that's going to happen,” Garibay said. “We are also here to remind Little Village residents and folks... that this campaign is not over, that just because they are doing their ribbon-cutting ceremony doesn’t mean our campaign ends here,” said Tovar. “We are here telling Target to end their lease with Hilco Redevelopment Partners.”

Wasserman also has a clear message for future employees in the distribution center: “If you want to unionize, let us know. We will support you. We will bring resources to support you.” ¬

Peter Winslow is a freelance journalist and investigative journalism student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He last wrote about the uptick in street overdoses in late 2020 for the Weekly

ART BY ZAHID KHALIL

Out of Control

Last year Superintendent David Brown ordered deputy chiefs to approve all overtime. Internal records don’t show that it’s happening.

BY JIM DALEY AND KIRAN MISRA

Shortly after taking command of the Chicago Police Department in April 2020, Superintendent David Brown moved to curtail overtime spending by issuing an order requiring supervisors who are ranked deputy chief or higher to approve all overtime requests. More than a year later, it’s unclear whether that order had any eff ect.

Records obtained by the Weekly appear to indicate the vast majority of overtime clocked by offi cers since Brown issued the directive has been approved by lower-ranking offi cers such as lieutenants and sergeants, who seem to still be primarily responsible for managing its oversight. Th e department claims that is simply because lower-ranking supervisors are entering the data, and insists all overtime is being authorized by deputy chiefs and above.

Th e directive—one of Brown’s fi rst as superintendent—followed a similar one issued in late 2019 by thenInterim Superintendent Charlie Beck that elevated overtime supervision to district commanders, rather than leaving it in the hands of lieutenants and sergeants. Making district- and arealevel supervisors such as commanders (as Beck did) and deputy chiefs (per Brown’s order) responsible for approving overtime apparently had little eff ect on spending.

Overtime expenditures rose steadily each year from around $45 million at the start of the decade until 2017, when the department spent $161 million on it. Th at year, the City’s Offi ce of the Inspector General (OIG) audited the department’s use of overtime, and found CPD lacked “basic operational controls” for spending. Following the audit, overtime spending fell to $122.5 million in 2018, but rose again the following year. In 2020, CPD broke department records by spending more than $177 million on overtime. Last week, City Budget Director Susie Park told the Sun-Times she anticipates spending at least $150 million on it this year.

At a press conference last year, Brown shrugged off the Weekly’s question about overtime supervision. “Nothing to see here. We are good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars and we don’t apologize for that,” he said. “We wanted to ensure

that we were making sure we were spending the taxpayer dollars as it relates to overtime in the most prudent way, and we feel satisfi ed that’s being done.”

Brown’s April 2020 directive says no offi cer can work overtime “without the approval of the member’s appropriate higher-ranking supervisor AND approval of the member's exempt supervisor the rank of deputy chief or above.” [emphasis original]. Deputy chiefs or higher are required to grant fi nal approval by signing an overtime or compensatory time report, according to the directive. According to a CPD Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) offi cer, the department no longer uses such reports, and instead uses an automated system called CLEARNET.

To understand what eff ect Brown’s April order had on overtime supervision, the Weekly sent FOIA requests to CPD for timekeeping data and other records. Th e department provided spreadsheets generated from CLEARNET, that show all overtime offi cers earned from April 28, 2020 through May 1, 2021. Th e spreadsheets also list the name and rank of the offi cer who granted prior authorization for each overtime request and the supervisor who later approved it. We analyzed the data to determine how often supervisors of each rank approved or authorized the requests.

Th e data indicates that Brown’s directive had little eff ect on the day-today supervision of overtime. In the twelve months following the order, sergeants and lieutenants are listed as having authorized or approved more than half of all overtime earned between May 1, 2020 and April 21, 2021. Deputy chiefs and other top-ranking offi cers are listed as having approved or authorized less than fi ve percent of it.

A CPD spokesperson told the Weekly that all overtime is authorized by deputy chiefs or above, despite what the data seems to show. Th e spokesperson said the CLEARNET records show lowerranking supervisors authorizing it because the person inputting the deputy chief’s authorization can be any other offi cer under their command. “Th at individual's name would show up in the electronic system, though the Deputy Chief would still be the approving individual,” the spokesperson said.

But Brown’s order regarding overtime supervision clearly states: “Members will document approval with the name and PC Login ID number of the approving supervisor in the ‘Overtime Authorized By’ section of the Overtime/ Compensatory Time Report.”

One way the department has said it is holding deputy chiefs accountable for overtime is in CompStat meetings, where command staff review crime statistics, prevention, and other administrative matters with area and district and area commanders. When asked in meetings last year, some commanders told their superiors they had no control of overtime due to COVID-19 and that summer’s protests.

Via FOIA requests, the Weekly obtained notes, summary reports, and transcripts of CompStat meetings held between April and December 2020. According to the records, overtime was discussed at about half of those CompStat meetings. In those instances where transcripts of the discussions were available, commanders repeatedly stated they had no control of increased overtime due to the department-wide orders.

At a May 14 CompStat meeting, then-Deputy Chief of Crime Control Strategies Th omas Lemmer (who has since retired) asked then-8th District Commander Brian McDermott why overtime due to offi cers involuntarily working on regular days off (RDOs) had recently increased. “It was because of the COVID and RDOs being canceled,” McDermott replied. “It was beyond my control.”

At a meeting on May 28, Lemmer similarly asked 2nd District Commander Joshua Wallace why the amount of overtime due to offi cers working on days off had increased. “Offi cers working their days off were out of my control with COVID,” Wallace replied.

At an Area 4 CompStat meeting in October 2020, “not notifying DC for approval of overtime” was noted as an ongoing administrative issue; “DC” could refer either to Deputy Chiefs or District Commanders. In either case, the department was aware of the problem regarding approvals. It’s unclear what steps, if any, were taken to fi x the problem.

Th e apparent lack of overtime supervision by top brass continued through this year. In March 2021, about one percent of overtime was approved or authorized by a deputy chief or higher, according to the CLEARNET data we reviewed.

Our analysis uncovered a number of additional anomalies in the data:

Between May 2020 and April 2021, the same offi cer who was listed as initially authorizing the overtime was listed as also having later approved it seventy percent of the time—a problem that was fl agged in the OIG’s 2017 audit.

In the nearly 25,000 overtime entries that were categorized as being for court duty, only fi ve had an authorizing offi cer listed. A CPD spokesperson said that according to department directives, when an offi cer receives notifi cation to appear in court while on-duty, “no additional signatures are required for authorization.” While that’s true, Brown’s directive also requires offi cers to enter a court notifi cation record number, yet the CLEARNET spreadsheets don’t even have a fi eld for entering such data.

Two police offi cers, Edmund Szudy and Anthony Papadakis, authorized nearly all the overtime earned for “special voluntary duty.” Cops earn this categorization of overtime by working on their days off to provide extra security to the Park District, Chicago Housing Authority, and Chicago Transit Authority. Th e spokesperson reiterated that this is because individuals below the rank of Deputy Chief can enter the overtime data into the electronic system. Again, the order requires the approving supervisor’s name to be entered, not the name of the offi cer doing data entry.

Has Brown’s directive had any impact? It’s hard to tell. Th e department no longer uses paper reports that would get a deputy chief’s signature, as the Superintendent’s order dictates. CPD’s electronic timekeeping system allows any supervisor under a deputy chief’s command to enter themselves in the “approved” and “authorized” fi elds, according to the department, so there’s no record of which deputy chief signed off (if any). When district commanders were asked about increased overtime at CompStat, they repeatedly said they had no control over it; at least one meeting noted the problem of “DCs” not even being notifi ed of overtime requests.

And the City expects overtime spending to continue to exceed $150 million annually.

“We understand how important it is to ensure public safety while also being responsible with taxpayer resources,” the CPD spokesperson told the Weekly. “We will continue to review the use of overtime and ensure it is being used appropriately and effi ciently.” ¬

Jim Daley is the Weekly’s politics editor. He last investigated the police offi cer who attacked activist Miracle Boyd at a 2020 protest. Kiran Misra covers criminal justice and policing in Chicago for the Weekly. She last interviewed Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell, Jr.