The Honolulu Police Department's manpower accounting practices fail to provide an accurate picture of patrol officers' workloads and activities and hamper efforts by the administration to justify staffing needs, according to a report released yesterday by the Office of the City Auditor.

The lack of accurate data has forced the department to exceed its overtime budget by an average of more than 60,000 hours per year over the past five years, according to the audit.

Also, the recruitment practices and training facilities are "insufficient" to meet projected patrol officer staffing needs, the audit found.

Salary incentives and benefits pale in comparison to comparable Mainland jurisdictions and also stifle recruitment efforts.

HPD's patrol staff was short by an average of 173 officers in each of the past five years.

The more difficulty HPD has filling vacancies, the more overtime costs the department incurs to cover empty shifts, meaning no actual salary savings, according to the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services.

HPD's practice of giving patrol officers "special assignments," such as covering shifts in other districts or filling positions in other divisions like information technology and the alternative call servicing center, has further reduced the number of officers available to patrol O'ahu's streets.

The city auditor, Leslie I. Tanaka, said the department's manpower accounting practices make it difficult to justify staffing increases to taxpayers and other stakeholders.

"Are they attending to the safety needs of the community in a timely basis? It's hard for them to say what exactly their officers are doing," Tanaka said.

The response from police came in a letter to Tanaka dated Aug. 20.

"The Honolulu Police Department is in general acceptance of the conclusions and recommendations of the City Auditor," wrote Chief Boisse Correa.

Honolulu police Maj. Dave Kajihiro, who is in charge of human resources for the department, and Capt. Frank Fujii declined to answer questions about the audit yesterday because they were not authorized to.

Fujii referred questions about the auditor's findings to Correa's letter.

"We would like to thank the Office of the City Auditor for its recent audit of the Honolulu Police Department's patrol staffing practices. The audit will be beneficial in addressing some of the department's immediate concerns as well as the long-term needs of our department and community," Correa wrote.

Since 2004, Correa has been asking for more money from the city to hire more officers, but each budget season the department has been allotted well below what it sought.

The Police Department has 2,112 authorized officer positions, its highest number ever. That's up 3.8 percent from 2001 levels, roughly the same percentage growth as O'ahu's population during that time.

But police officials have said they still need more positions.

As of March 31, however, only 1,879 of those positions were filled, leaving the department with 233 vacancies.

That's an 11 percent shortfall, up slightly from last year, which showed the lowest vacancy rate since at least 2001.

There are 157 recruits currently in training, but the department loses an average of 153 officers a year to retirement, resignations and dismissals.

Workload assessment reports, designed to allow district commanders to evaluate their staffing levels, are seen as administrative requirements rather than management tools, and not all commanders consistently or accurately report whether current staffing levels are sufficient to meet the needs of the communities they serve, according to the audit.

The lack of job task tracking makes it "difficult for higher-level administrators prioritizing department-wide staffing and promotes the perception of inequitable staffing between districts," according to the report.

Tanaka said other Mainland cities, such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, accurately track the amount of time officers spend "pro-actively patrolling" as opposed to responding to calls for service or assisting with other tasks such as traffic control. The data allow the departments to establish benchmarks for the percentage of time an officer should spend patrolling a particular community.

"HPD's computer-aided dispatch system falls short as a way of documenting how patrol officers use their time," the audit said.

The city's audit concluded that the department's recruitment practices and training facilities are insufficient to meet staffing needs.

HPD's recruiting staff is made up of two officers, one full-time and one on special assignment, and has an annual budget of $40,000 and no travel budget.

The Phoenix Police Department, which is of comparable size, employs five full-time recruiters and has a budget of $300,000. The San Diego Police Department sends recruiters around the country and has a budget of $400,000.

Hawai'i officers' salaries are about 21 percent behind their West Coast counterparts in comparable jurisdictions.

Starting annual salary for police officers is $39,072, according to the HPD. That's up 23 percent from 2001.

But starting pay for San Francisco police officers is $64,000.

Also, unlike departments on the Mainland, HPD does not allow lateral transfers, meaning mid-career officers cannot join the department without losing their rank and pay grade.

The audit also criticized the department's training facility as inadequate.

The facility is too small and can only accommodate one recruit class per year, which is inadequate to address future staffing concerns, the audit said.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.