15 Sacramento police officers doubled their pay with overtime for multiple years
Thirty-two employees of the Sacramento Police Department doubled their salaries through overtime pay for at least one year during 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to a Sacramento Bee analysis of city salary records.
Among those officers and sergeants, 15 doubled their salary for two or three of those years, earning at least 190% annually of what they would have made before overtime.
In one case, an officer came close to tripling his pay.
The City Council is currently weighing how to navigate a $44 million deficit, and public meetings on the 2025-26 budget are underway — the next is Tuesday. Prompted in part by the deficit, Councilmember Mai Vang called for an audit of police overtime spending, which routinely exceeds $15 million a year.
In 2023, about half of police employees made little to no overtime, while just 22 officers and sergeants collectively made $2.7 million in overtime, The Bee’s analysis shows. Over the three-year period, 32 officers and sergeants racked up $6.2 million total in extra earnings.
Sgt. Daniel Wiseman, a Police Department spokesperson, said that much of the overtime was to “backfill” unstaffed positions. Many calls have two-officer minimums for safety reasons, he said.
“Generally, I can say that like a lot of different departments, we’re facing staffing challenges,” he said. “There’s no superfluous overtime.”
Wiseman said that the department strives to reduce the need for overtime, but that he wasn’t aware of particular limits on it. Overtime hours are formally approved on an as-needed basis by supervisors, Wiseman said.
In 2021, 2022 and 2023, salary reports show that among full-time workers, all the top overtime earners in Sacramento were employed by either the Police Department or the Fire Department.
Only one city employee outside police or fire made that much from overtime in any of the three years: an administrative analyst for the city’s Fleet Services who doubled her salary in 2023.
Which Sacramento police officers doubled their salaries?
The Bee’s analysis looked at the raw overtime numbers — as in, which employees made the largest sums of money through overtime. The analysis also compared overtime pay to regular pay for full-time workers and singled out people whose total annual pay was at least 90% higher because they worked outside their regular hours.
In raw numbers, the top police overtime earner in a single year was Officer Joe Tavarez Brown. He made $199,773 in overtime in 2022, which was about 167% of his regular pay of $119,631 — in other words, his pay that year was approaching triple what he would have made working only his regular hours. In 2023, Brown was close to doubling his salary, with $108,548 in overtime compared to his regular pay of $118,370. In 2021, however, he made much less, earning about 64% of his regular pay in overtime.
Records released by the Police Department in response to a Public Records Act request show that for all three years, Brown has been on the 5th District day shift team. That southern district spans the Meadowview, Parkway and Valley Hi/North Laguna neighborhoods of the city.
Wiseman said that a lot of overtime goes toward critical incidents.
“If we have to call a SWAT team out in the middle of the night, that would be overtime,” he said, adding that a lot of the overtime budget also goes to crisis negotiations, homicide investigations and major collisions.
Three of the 15 people who at least doubled their salary for multiple years were assigned to the SWAT team: Tyler W. Curtis and Steven F. Pitts, both officers, and Michael Alan James Mantsch, who is now a sergeant. They made at least double their base with overtime for all three years.
One person, an undercover officer identified as “Officer 18,” also made significant amounts of overtime for multiple years.
Officer 18 was a standout among undercover officers, doubling his or her regular pay all three years. On average over those years, the 24 officers whose names were withheld from the dataset made about 35% of their regular pay in overtime. Officer 18 was the top overtime earner each year.
Jason Kirtlan, as a sergeant in the police unit that patrols Old Sacramento and parts of downtown on horseback, more than doubled his salary with overtime in 2023. His regular pay was $132,417, and his overtime pay was $153,682. He also more than doubled his salary in 2021 and 2022, making $166,196 and $159,887 just in overtime hours.
Thomas Pangelinan, an officer who was contracted out to Sacramento Regional Transit, made 143% more than he would have made from his base salary in 2023. His regular pay was $110,812, and his overtime pay was $158,663. His daughter, Alicia Pangelinan, an officer who patrolled the northern areas of the city in 2023, also made significant overtime in 2021 and 2022, doubling or nearly doubling her pay.
Some overtime, Wiseman said, is covered by budgets outside the department — usually third-party and private companies contracting police services for special events, for example a Kings game. Police can also work extra hours, known as “supplemental overtime,” at outside businesses that pay them, such as the Arden Fair mall.
“These officers are showing up, often on their days off,” Wiseman said Tuesday. “Not just to earn a paycheck, but to ensure the city is staffed and the community’s needs are met.”
Wiseman said that in 2024, officers worked 44,807.2 hours of supplemental employment, which was billed to third parties for a total of $3.92 million. In 2023, the department’s personnel had 40,574.75 hours of supplemental OT, which was charged to those entities for a total of $3.77 million.
How did The Bee calculate police overtime?
Sacramento reports salary information, including overtime pay, to the State Controller’s Office. The city released three annual salary reports for 2021, 2022 and 2023 in response to Public Records Act requests. After receiving the reports, The Bee looked at the top overtime earners just by raw numbers — as in, who received the largest sums in overtime pay? That showed that all the top overtime earners were either police or fire personnel. In 2023, the workers who received the 262 highest amounts of overtime worked for police or fire; in 2022, it was the top 175; and in 2021, it was the top 208.
Then, The Bee looked at overtime as a percentage of regular pay. The analysis focused on those city employees whose overtime pay was at least 90% of their regular pay — meaning that they effectively doubled their base salaries through overtime. Only one city employee outside police or fire made that much from overtime in any of the three years: an administrative analyst for the city’s Fleet Services who doubled her salary in 2023.
This story was originally published May 20, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that no city employees outside the Police Department and the Fire Department made more than 90% of their base pay in overtime. Additionally, in 2023, the top 262 overtime earners in the city worked for police or fire; in 2022, it was the top 175; and in 2021, it was the top 208. An earlier version of this story understated those numbers and misidentified a civilian fleet services analyst who doubled her salary with overtime in 2023 as working for the Department of Public Works; she is a civilian employee of the Police Department.
