Salary numbers show that a Connecticut city has police officers who can more than double their salaries by working overtime.

It is not unusual for a police officer to be able to work as much overtime as they care to do because the work is available; this occurs across the state and nation for a variety of reasons, including not having enough staff, many experts have said.

But in Hartford, where annual salary data provided by the city under a Freedom of Information request shows at least 30 officers bringing in more than $100,000 a year in duly earned overtime, leaders say they are trying to address the issue.

That includes hiring new officers (nine recently) and working to bring back those who have left the department for various reasons, Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said.

Arulampalam confirmed that the reason the city is spending so much on overtime is that "the ranks of our police department are understaffed."

He said the city is actively also "working to recruit back" three officers who left the department. There are "reasons for optimism," he said.

"As we lose officers, we end up spending more in overtime than the cost of a police officer's salary," Arulampalam said. "Every city is really struggling with it; we are making a concerted effort at addressing issues for some of the police officers."

The city also is in search of a new police chief. Former Hartford Police Chief James Rovella is serving as interim chief as the search for a permanent leader continues.

Rovella served as chief of Hartford Police from 2012 to 2018 before being named commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. He retired from that role in 2023. An email offering Rovella a chance to comment was sent.

One Hartford officer, the data shows, has an annual salary of $83,683, but earned $180,000 in overtime. In total, the city has more than 200 employees who earn more than $100,000 a year, the data provided by the city shows. Some, but not all of the higher salary employees are able to earn overtime, the data shows. In many communities, outside duty, (such as certain roadwork) which is shown as overtime, is paid by companies, and not the municipality.

The Hartford Police Department last year was 108 officers short of full staffing, and it noted its low recruitment numbers. The department at that time had 378 sworn officers among its ranks. That number was a loss of one officer from the same time the previous year, showing an increase in officer retention.

Chief Thody said at that time that "these staffing numbers affect our overtime budget."

"We have 84 total shifts that we fill in a day on day shift, evening shift and midnight shift. Of those, we're averaging 28 we have to fill through overtime and six shifts per week have to fill by either ordering an officer in or holding an officer in for a double shift because we just don't have the staff to fill those."

Arulampalam said the city also is in negotiations with the Fire Department union, a contract that expired Jan 1.

The key there, he said, is to make sure the city is "competitive with other big city (fire departments) across the state." The mayor said he could not comment on details of any contract under negotiation.

Arulampalam said it is important to note that the city is working to ensure employees are paid "a living wage."

For example, he said, sacrifices were made by collectively bargaining groups, "for a number of years while the city was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy," and "we wanted to make sure we were responding to that."

Further he said, citing an example of a union that includes janitors and sanitation workers and many others, a raise was negotiated "to ensure that they were making a truly living wage."

"Priority has certainly been those who ... haven't got a wage increase in a long time," he said. "We want to make sure everyone is earning a living wage in the city."

Arulampalam said as the city considers wages and hiring, it recognizes that there is a "generational" issue to think about: quality of life.

"There are a lot of folks thinking about careers in public service," he said, but they also are thinking about the "balance of work and life" and that can mean extended working of overtime would not work for them.

"We are trying to figure out how we can balance that," he said.

The mayor said while the city needs very specific professional skills in many roles, those who consider working for the city also think about private sector salaries, which often are higher.

For example, he said, the city's chief investment officer for the pension fund has the highest list salary in the city, at $225,000 a year, but Is "below market" and also is paid out of pension fund, not the city budget.

The city is "committed to a competitive wage," he said.