Summer of cops: NYPD set to use 12-hour shifts and spend nearly $100 million in overtime to secure a historic season of events, Tisch says

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told City Council members during a public safety executive budget hearing on June 1 that the NYPD expects to spend approximately $92 million in overtime for police personnel in the coming months, with up to $42 million in overtime projected for a single week in July.

She said the 2026 summer would place “historic demands” on the NYPD, but told council members that major events would not and could not halt day-to-day public safety needs such as responding to 911 calls, patrolling neighborhoods, and investigating crime.

“The extraordinary and the everyday have to be handled at the same time, and this department is preparing to do both,” Tisch said in her testimony before the City Council on Monday.

To meet this historic summer in the city, the NYPD will institute 12-hour workdays for the “vast majority” of officers during the week of July 1 to July 7, requiring them to work four hours of overtime either before or after their scheduled shift.

Tisch told City Council members that the overtime is necessary due to the unprecedented threat posed to NYC as a host city during a major international event.

“New York City is not only a global hub, it is a global target,” Tisch said.

The federal government, which contributes around $190 million in annual funding to counterterrorism efforts in the city, had cut its allocations by about 40% in 2024, Tisch said. The public safety leader noted that NYPD was also excluded from about 15 federal grant applications because of its sanctuary city status, which the Trump administration opposes. The White House had attempted to claw back $187 million in counterterrorism funding for the NYPD last year, but eventually abandoned the effort after pushback from state and city governments.

“I began my career building out the NYPD’s counterterrorism capabilities, and in my 18 years in government, I have not seen a threat environment quite like this one in which multiple vectors are all active at the same time and when developments abroad can have immediate consequences here at home,” Tisch said.

Tisch also told council members that any other FIFA World Cup host city would generally cancel most other major events to prepare for the added public safety needs of a huge international tournament — but not in “the city that never sleeps.” She said the NYPD is ready to help New York protect and power through signature summer events and festivals, without compromising annual programming across the city that New Yorkers have come to expect.

Nevertheless, the city’s top cop repeated her concerns about large gatherings of international audiences, and the potential threat of terrorism.

“We cannot overstate the gravity of this.,” Tisch said. “It is not bureaucratic inconvenience, it is a direct threat to the NYPD’s ability to maintain and enhance critical counterterrorism intelligence operations in New York City, the most visible terror target in the United States.”

Representatives of official FIFA public watch party locations told amNewYork that they were ramping up security in conjunction with the NYPD and partners for the tournament.

A spokesperson with Brooklyn Bridge Park, one such watch party location, said that its partner Adidas would be hiring additional security for the watch parties in addition to a more robust police presence.

“We are working closely with the NYPD on the safety and security of all of the exciting events happening at Brooklyn Bridge Park this summer,” officials with Brooklyn Bridge Park said.

The unprecedented schedule of events will test the NYPD’s resources unlike any summer in recent memory, with city officials balancing the demands of international sporting events, major civic celebrations, and routine public safety responsibilities.