Behind the Budget: Fire Department Overtime Explained

(Editor's Note: The following letter was sent from Fire Commission Chairman Roger Williams to the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance and the Town Council. The Fire Department will present its proposed 2011-2012 budget to the Board of Finance on Tuesday, Feb. 15.)

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I know there have been several conversations within these three town bodies regarding the sick and injury OT lines in the FD budget for the current year.  The purpose of this letter is to give you our latest forecast on these line items, the reasons behind these expenses and the actions the Fire Commission are taking to mitigate our exposure to these line items.

First, I would like to explain what is captured in these lines.  If a fire fighter is sick or injured, and is unable to work his assigned shift, we are required to fill that shift with another fire fighter.  This new fire fighter is paid overtime for this additional shift as it is above his normally assigned hours.  This overtime pay is then charged to either the Injury OT line (in the case of an ON the job injury for the first fire fighter) or the Sick OT line (in the case of illness, OFF the job injury or any other qualified “sick” definition). 

INJURY OT

With regard to Injury OT, the Town does not budget for this line.  We use it only as a tracking line for actual injury OT expenses as it is difficult to forecast on the job injuries (just as it was difficult to forecast the current snow fall totals and the OT the town would incur for snow removal). 

We have had one fire fighter out on long-term injury (LT injury) leave for the past 14 months (and we are unsure at this time as to the timing of his return).  This one LT injury has been driving the majority of our injury OT in both the current year as well as last year.  The chart below shows the four-year history of our injury OT expense and also shows how much of the expense was attributable to this one injury.  We have also had snow related injuries with the winter weather this year that has impacted our current year’s injury OT. 

Year

07/08

08/09

09/10

10/11

6 months

FY est.

Total Injury OT

$24,817

$41,951

$136,273

$91,204

$189,423

LT injury

($77,021)

($56,347)

($117,028)

Net w/o LT injury

$24,817

$41,951

$59,252

$34,857

$72,395

(Please note that both the number of missed shifts as well as increased wages drives the increase in Injury OT year over year)

SICK OT

Each Fire Fighter is eligible for up to 7.5 shifts for sick leave.  If every FF used all of his sick leave we would have to fill 180 shifts with a FF on OT.  Our maximum exposure if every FF was out for his full sick leave would be $207,934.  Based on our history, we know that not every FF will use all of his eligible sick leave.  As a result, we budgeted $189,422 for the current year.  According to our contract, any FF who has unused sick days is allowed to “bank” those days for use in future years.  The Town does not budget for any redemption of these banked days.  This year, we have had three fire fighters out on sick leave (due to OFF the job injuries) who have used all of their current year sick days and then used their banked days resulting in additional sick OT to the department of $61,695 of unbudgeted OT. 

Including this unbudgeted “banked” Sick OT; our total sick OT is projected to come in at $213,993 (or $33,492 above the current budget). 

FINANCIAL SUMMARY

We are currently forecasting that we will incur unbudgeted OT expense of $222,914 in these two lines ($33K in sick OT and $189K in Injury OT). 

It is important to note that when you remove the impact of the one long-term injury and the “banked” (and unbudgeted) sick OT, the resulting unbudgeted OT expense for these lines is $44,192.

CORRECTIVE ACTIONS

1. FEMA Reimbursement from March 2010 storm – The town received over $440,000 in reimbursement for expenses related to the March 2010 storm.  The Board of Selectmen recently established the precedent of allowing the Public Works Dept to use $250,000 of these funds to cover the OT expenses related to snow removal in this current budget.  Since Fire Department March 2010 expenses were also used to qualify for the FEMA reimbursement, we are asking the Board of Selectmen to also allow FD to use its’ portion of this FEMA grant to cover our current OT (as has been done with Public Works).  This consistency of treatment of the different town departments with the FEMA funds is the only fair way to distribute these monies.
2. HIRING OF A NEW FIRE FIGHTER – The Fire Commission (by way of this letter) is requesting approval from the Board of Selectmen to hire a new Fire Fighter to cover the shift of the long term injury fire fighter.  This would remove the largest component of the Injury OT line.  Our annual savings would be $47,500 as compared to the cost of bringing back fire fighters on OT to fill this shift.  If given approval quickly, we believe we could have a new FF on this shift by April 1.  The savings to the current budget using this strategy would be approximately $13,000 LESS than the current forecast of OT pay in the financial summary above.
3. CIRMA training – CIRMA has offered to meet with the department to help facilitate training programs to mitigate the injuries we have been sustaining.  We have asked to bring them in to meet with the Department as soon as possible.  As our work force ages and more stress is put on the crews due to having to fill in for sick, injury, vacation and holiday shifts, it will become very important to institute training programs as a way to minimize potential injuries.

I hope this answers any questions you may have had concerning our budget, or if you still have any questions, please let me know.  Thank you.