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Mayor Frey says the city has been "drastically undercounting the dollar figure necessary in the budget to complete those [police] overtime hours... for as long as I can remember." What he means is "the whole time I've been mayor."

Frey's defense is, we're spending about what we would've spent if MPD had 888 officers. Does that mean the department has a budget for 888 officers? "No."

Frey: "it's a fair argument to say let's transparently account for the actual costs of [police] overtime. Or at least estimate the actual cost of overtime." But to say we don't need to spend this money on police overtime is not a fair argument.

Question about why his budgets have so drastically underestimated police overtime. Frey points to how understaffed MPD is. Staffing per capita is among lowest in country. He doesn't say why this reality, which has existed for many years, was not reflected in his budgets.

Frey says spending is the equivalent of MPD having hundreds more officers than they actually do. "what it shows is, it was not actually an overspend at all." He's in his third term and still getting the hang of the concept of a budget.

Question: This is an annual pattern. Last year's overspend was more than 20 million. Frey: "maybe you're missing the point here. $2.3 million was never an accurate figure." "The problem is it was never accounted for from the beginning."

Reporters very confused by Frey's presentation. Question: You said the police overtime budget was never realistic. Then why wasn't it realistic?

Question: You spent 30 million on overtime last year. You budgeted 2.3 million this year. That makes no sense. Why?