City plans to eliminate fire department overtime
Mayor Byron W. Brown's administration is reviewing a plan that could eliminate overtime for firefighters by December, city officials disclosed today.
Two top mayoral advisers said current policies need a radical restructuring because skyrocketing overtime costs are "breaking the budget."
"It's abusive," said city Finance Commissioner Janet Penksa. "You have firefighters making $165,000 a year when you factor in overtime."
"The system is absolutely broken and needs to be fixed," said First Deputy Mayor Steven M. Casey.
Their comments follow a series of articles in The Buffalo News that focused on escalating overtime in the Fire Department and how it has allowed many employees to pump up their pensions.
Penksa praised the series for its analysis of a looming fiscal problem. She presented some of The News' data to the city's accountability panel.
Five years ago, the Fire Department spent about $2.2 million in overtime. Last year, the overtime tab approached $10.6 million.
For the first time since the overtime surge surfaced more than a year ago, Penksa said she thinks a strong argument could be made for hiring new firefighters to fill all vacant jobs. When vacancies and disabled firefighters who are out for long-term injuries are tallied, Fire Commissioner Michael S. Lombardo said, the department is typically down about 67 people.
"I'm almost at the point where I think we should put enough firefighters in the budget to eliminate overtime … period," Penksa said today.
In the past, some city and fire union officials have defended the dramatic increase in overtime by pointing to staff reductions and an earlier hiring freeze. They also have argued that some overtime can save the city millions of dollars in long-term payroll and benefit costs.
Lombardo conceded that the public views sky-high overtime as a "horrid thing," and he said he takes full responsibility.
"But it's basically tied to minimum staffing requirements," Lombardo told the CitiStat panel.
Efforts have been made to control overtime "wherever we can," said Lombardo. But the fire commissioner said the city is obligated to follow minimum staffing mandates. The union contract requires it, said Lombardo, and public safety dictates that manpower guidelines be strictly followed.
Casey questioned whether it is in the interest of public safety to let some firefighters work vast amounts of overtime in a given week.
"You're going to be off — you're going to be tired," Casey said of those firefighters who work many extra hours.
Firefighters with the most seniority get the most overtime, meaning that older workers on the force are often working the most hours.
Penksa said it's unfortunate that repeated efforts over the past three years to reach a contract settlement with the fire union have been fruitless. If a settlement had been reached, she said, perhaps many of the fiscal problems in the Fire Department would have been resolved. She expressed suspicion that some firefighters have written off raises because they know existing policies allow many tenured employees to more than double their salaries by signing up for overtime. She said the policies are unfair to taxpayers, many of whom are unemployed or struggling to make ends meet.
"At a certain point, you have to think about the people," she said.
Penksa said budget analysts will be running the numbers in the coming weeks to see how many firefighters would have to be hired from a new list of recruits to either "completely eliminate" overtime or keep it at a minimal level. A new class of firefighters — whatever its size — will likely begin training in September and should be on the streets by December, officials said.
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