BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Baltimore City police overtime — it’s like a chronic disease that never receives treatment. For those not familiar with the problem, let’s recap. Each year the Police Department makes up an overtime budget that grossly underestimates expenses.

The most recent example is the $4 million the Board of Estimates recently approved to pay for overbudget overtime and another $14 million for an “operational deficit.”

Last year the city directed half of the $40 million budget surplus to the Police Department — 90 percent of which was spent on overtime, according to former Budget Director Ray Wacks. In 2006 the city spent $37 million on overtime after budgeting $8 million. City police spokesman Sterling Clifford said the current overtime spending is 20 percent below where it was last year at this time. We’ll believe that when we see the final numbers for the fiscal year, which ends June 30.

The worst part about the problem is that City Council members each year rubber-stamp the police budget and then express outrage later when police return for handouts from the city to cover their losses. What did they expect? A miracle?

If City Council members want a real budget, they must require the Police Department to provide one from the outset and reject plans that defy reality. All the add-ons make it impossible to figure out how much the Police Department spends each year. And as The Examiner pointed out earlier this week, the Police Department and other city agencies have also received millions through the Industrial Development Authority, a secretive city-owned organization, making the $311 million allocated for the Police Department in the $1.344 billion operating budget next year merely a guess.

Tolerating this chicanery means less money for other city services in good times and a deficit in lean times. A drop in recordation and transfer taxes from a faltering real estate market could wipe out the surplus next year. That means higher taxes or budget cuts, or both. At the very least, the Police Department owes the citizens of Baltimore an honest assessment of its expenses so that taxpayers are not forced to pick up the tab for services they never anticipated.

Under Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld, murders and nonfatal shootings have dropped dramatically. We commend him for that. But the city needs his fiscal leadership, too.