A council or state legislative office is prepping for a budget hearing where a department will be asked to justify a spike in its overtime line. The department's own written testimony will, unsurprisingly, frame the number favorably. Staff want to walk in with an independent read on the trend before the hearing, not react to it in the room.
A staffer searches the department in CompensationAtlas, which separates base salary rate from actual overtime-driven earnings, aggregated at the department level and tracked year over year.
The rollup shows overtime spending up sharply over three years while headcount in the department has stayed flat — a pattern the department's testimony doesn't mention, since it only speaks to the current year in isolation.
Walking into a hearing with the department's own numbers beats reacting to their summary of them.
Instead of a general question about the budget line, staff can ask specifically why overtime has grown while staffing hasn't — a question grounded in the department's own public payroll data, not a guess.
Council and state legislative staff preparing for budget hearings, and budget or oversight office analysts who need to verify a department's figures independently.