Even as the number of reported crimes has continued to drop, the amount of overtime pay shelled out by the New York Police Department has risen to new heights.

According to the department’s internal list of “Top 100” overtime earners, some officers are making thousands of dollars more in overtime pay than they make in salary, and some midlevel officers are grossing nearly as much as top police brass.

Last year’s biggest overtime earner was a sergeant, John Moynihan, who supervises a detective squad, according to police documents obtained by The New York Sun. The sergeant earned $62,105 in overtime pay in calendar year 2004, above his base salary of $79,547. Combined, the numbers put Sergeant Moynihan’s income from the department at more than $141,000, only about $30,000 less than the salary of the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly.

One other uniformed employee made more than $60,000 in overtime: Lieutenant Thomas McPartland, whose base pay was $73,707 and whose overtime pay totaled $60,453.

Also near the top of the “Top 100” was Detective Second-Grade Glenn Whitter, who supplemented his $69,300 base pay with overtime earnings of $58,130, according to the department figures.

Four police officers earned overtime pay more than equal to their salary, according to the “Top 100” list.

Officers Antonio Rico, Jeff Miller, Michael Acosta, and Steven Campanella each earned base pay of $54,048 as a cop working a “recurring night shift.” With overtime, however, each officer earned in excess of $100,000 a year. Mr. Rico earned $59,731 in overtime pay, according to the documents.

The overtime spending was not limited to police officers. A department plumber, Brian Hentze, earned a daily rate of $253 and was paid an additional $44,585 in overtime, the documents show.

The city comptroller, William Thompson, has voiced concern repeatedly about the Police Department’s rising amount of overtime pay. In a report issued December 14, Mr. Thompson’s auditors found that the department was projected to spend $60 million in overtime beyond what was budgeted for the current fiscal year: $331 million, compared to $271 million.

Among the department’s nonuniform or civilian employees, the amount of overtime pay was projected to cost $20 million more than the $14 million originally set aside in the department’s budget.

For the upcoming fiscal year, auditors from the comptroller’s office suggest that the department’s overtime spending is unlikely to decrease.

In a preliminary budget report issued last Thursday, the comptroller’s auditors have projected that the department, which requested $245.3 million in overtime pay for the 2006 fiscal year, would spend $355 million.

Among nonuniformed and civilian members of the department, actual spending on overtime in the next fiscal year is again expected to more than double the budget request. The Bloomberg administration wants to set aside $15.6 million, but the comptroller projects total spending for fiscal 2006 of $34 million.

On March 21, Commissioner Kelly and other police officials are expected to testify at a budgetary oversight hearing at the City Council. One of the primary issues of concern, according to the chairman of the council’s public safety committee, Peter Vallone Jr., is overtime pay.

“The problem is that we do not have enough police officers,” the Queens Democrat said. “We have a Police Department of 36,000 officers compared to one of 41,000 officers a few years ago. That means more officers are working double duty and inordinately longer hours.”

Critics also said the rising cost of overtime pay could reflect possible abuses of the overtime system. According to law enforcement officials, police officers have been known to wait until nearly the end of a shift to make arrests and to “hide out” from supervisors while assistant district attorneys write up arrest forms. Officers reaching the 20-year retirement threshold have also been known to seek inflated overtime hours, because the pension amount an officer receives is based on that officer’s earnings the last year he is employed with the Police Department.

The pressure on police officers to take home more pay and on police brass to manage a shrinking force and a tight budget is being felt through all ranks of the department. In late December, a deputy inspector from Staten Island and 19-year-veteran, Richard Capolongo, committed suicide one year shy of his retirement age. Capolongo had been moonlighting on a security job for extra pay and was under investigation by the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau for overtime abuse.

The investigation “consumed his mind,” the man’s brother, Robert Capolongo, said at the funeral, according to the Daily News. “The investigation,” he said, “made him afraid of his own shadow.”

Spokesmen for the Police Department and for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association did not return phone calls requesting comment.