Fire Dept. Overtime Costs Put A Dent In City Coffers

Fire Dept. Overtime Costs Put A Dent In City Coffers Recent retirements, injury cause staffing shortage

Andrew Mansfield Reporter GARDNER  The Finance Committee has recommended a transfer of $145,320 from the city’s free cash account to the Fire Department for several expenses. The largest two expenses are $84,000 for overtime pay and $48,000 for a new vehicle, with the overtime money raising some concern among councilors over how the city can limit the use of overtime moving forward. “One of the things that comes to mind is if we didn’t have free cash how would we fund this?” said City Council President and Finance Chairman James Walsh at Wednesday’s meeting. The $84,000 for overtime pay is in addition to the original $240,000 allotted in the city budget for fiscal 2016; the account is being supplemented to make it through the next few months before fiscal 2017. Fire Chief Richard Ares explained to the councilors that the department is short three positions as one firefighter has been on injured leave since September, a lieutenant retired in January, and another firefighter just retired in March. With the department being open 24 hours a day with six firefighters on duty for each of the four shifts, being short three staff members causes the others to work more overtime than they otherwise would. “Is there any way to prevent this (supplementing the overtime account) next year?” Councilor Marc Morgan asked Ares. Ares responded that “there’s no way to plan” for certain things such as emergency situations, injuries or sickness that can force more use of the overtime account. He said he asked for $300,000 in the overtime account for fiscal 2016 and that over the last few years the amount of overtime pay the department has given to staff has been similar to this year. In terms of planning purposes, one change Mayor Mark Hawke has advocated for is for firefighters to ideally give six months of notice before retiring, as it takes several months for replacements to be hired and trained. By state law, firefighters are only required to give a 24-hour notice before retiring. In the case of the retirements from the Fire Department this year, a few weeks of notice was given. With that in mind, Morgan asked Ares what he anticipates for department retirements as fiscal 2017 comes closer. “One or two is what I’m thinking,” responded Ares, saying that he knows for certain one firefighter who will retire and who plans to give a six-month notice. Ares also mentioned to councilors that a study was conducted for the department to analyze the use of overtime among staff and it concluded that it wouldn’t be more cost-effective with the existing budget to simply hire more firefighters in order to reduce the use of overtime. Hawke told councilors that if the city moves forward with plans to increase funding for the start of an in-house ambulance, more staff will be hired and that can limit the amount of overtime used. As for the $48,000 allotted for a new vehicle, it is for a 2016 Ford Explorer to be used by Capt. Greg Lagoy. The money includes the necessary additional outfitting for department use. The Ford will replace a 2005 Chevrolet Tahoe that Ares said has rusted and has brake issues. Since the city’s free cash account, which is money left over from the previous fiscal year, was certified by the state in January at just over $2 million, several expenditures have been made, such as $300,000 for various school building repairs. The council has been approving money orders recommended by Mayor Mark Hawke and as of the last council meeting there was about $1.3 million left in free cash. That number will likely continue to go down with the money for the Fire Department and other free cash expenditures set to be voted on by the City Council as a whole.