American Samoa police officers who have racked up thousands of hours in overtime for the last two years look unlikely to be paid for the overtime.
The Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety, Leseiau Laumoli, says they have included overtime costs in their annual budget requests but they are never approved.
The Department budget has no money to pay overtime other than hours worked on public holidays.
Hours worked in disaster response, security for VIP's and regular police work beyond 8 hours are taken as time off.
Leseiau Laumoli also added that refusing to do overtime is grounds for termination.
He said police work cannot be deferred till the next day when an 8 hour shift is up.
In lieu of overtime pay, officers are given time off or compensation time.
But several officers complained they are only able to use a fraction of their overtime hours as time off because of the manpower shortage at department.
