With the city on track to blow out its budget by $67 million this year, it’s obvious that some departments have been a little loose with their spending.

But going over budget by 2,464 percent? And only halfway through the year?

Really?

That’s the rate of overspending on the line-item for consultants by the New Orleans Police Department.

The department had allocated $188,920 to pay for consulting for 2010, but it has already spent a whopping $4.7 million as of the end of June.

What’d they spend it on? Good question.

The Lens put in a public-records request Monday (Note: an earlier version of this story incorrectly said the request was submitted Friday) for all NOPD consulting contracts, but the city finance department can’t get to the information. That’s because Kirk Mathis, the fiscal manager of the NOPD budget office, said his password to the necessary database has expired.

Really?