Define administrative overtime precisely
Identify which overtime codes, time records, report activities, shifts, and organizational units are included or excluded.
Transparent planning model
Show the assumptions. Test the math.
Municipal savings estimates should be understandable, adjustable, and measured against actual operational results. This calculator reproduces the August 2026 proposal scenario without treating it as a forecast.
Important: The default inputs are illustrative proposal assumptions—not verified operating data from the Orange County city described in the proposal. Changing an input demonstrates mathematical sensitivity only; it does not establish that the assumed reduction is operationally achievable.
Default proposal formula
Every figure can be traced.
The original $259,200 result corresponds to a 24-week planning convention for the six-month pilot.
Gross savings calculation
30 officers × 4 hours/week × $90/hour × 24 weeks = $259,200
Projected net benefit$259,200 gross savings − $90,000 pilot investment = $169,200
A calendar half-year can be approximately 26 weeks. The proposal’s stated total mathematically uses 24 weeks, so the methodology identifies that convention explicitly.
Measurement hierarchy
Validate the hours before valuing the hours.
A credible evaluation should proceed in sequence rather than starting with a desired dollar result.
Establish a 12-month historical baseline
Account for seasonality, vacancies, major incidents, special events, leave, court, training, policy changes, and unusual operating conditions.
Measure the pilot against a useful comparison
Use a defined test group and, where practical, a comparable pre-pilot period or control group rather than relying on department-wide before-and-after totals alone.
Confirm that reductions are operationally valid
Determine whether lower hours reflect technology, staffing changes, fewer incidents, delayed work, coding changes, or another factor.
Apply the verified loaded rate
Use Finance-approved overtime cost methodology and avoid mixing cash compensation, total compensation, and budgetary rates.
Subtract every pilot and ongoing cost
Include licensing, integration, internal labor, security, legal, training, maintenance, support, and continuing technology expense.
Reporting discipline
Keep unlike benefits in separate columns.
Only hard-dollar savings should be represented as an actual expenditure reduction. Cost avoidance and capacity recapture should be reported independently.
Hard-dollar savings
Require evidence of an actual reduction in overtime or another expenditure compared with the approved baseline.
Cost avoidance
Document the future expenditure that otherwise would have occurred, the timing, and the evidence supporting that conclusion.
Capacity recapture
Report productive hours returned and where those hours were redeployed. Do not automatically convert every recovered hour into cash savings.
Decision gates
Expansion should depend on evidence.
A pilot is useful even when it disproves an assumption. Predefined decision gates protect the City from continuing a program that does not produce sufficient value.
01
Continue
Validated financial and operational benefits exceed full costs, safeguards work, and results support a carefully controlled next phase.
02
Redesign
Some value is demonstrated, but workflow, scope, data quality, cost, accuracy, or governance requires correction before expansion.
03
Stop
Benefits do not exceed cost, service measures deteriorate, risks cannot be controlled, or results cannot be reliably attributed to the pilot.
Discuss a locally validated model.
CityBudget.ai can help municipal leaders define the assumptions, baselines, value categories, safeguards, and decision thresholds needed for a defensible pilot evaluation.
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