Fifth in a series
Re “Approaching the Reason for $1.5 Million in Overtime”
Having laid the groundwork in earlier installations for the case for charging the Fire Dept. $1.5 million in annual overtime, Fire Chief Chris Sellers calmly proceeded to explain the how and why of it.
“We have 18 people here on duty every day,” he said. “If somebody is off work for any reason, we have to hire somebody back. The reason might be someone is on vacation, off sick, called to jury duty – whatever pulls them away from work. We hire somebody back (of the same rank), an active member who normally would have been off-duty, to work that position.
“That is the $1.5 million number you see.
Welcome to the Why
“It is important to keep in mind that sometimes we are putting people into those positions because of illness or vacation, as I said. We sometimes have vacancies in the department when people leave to go to another organization or retire.
“We now have to fill those positions. Again, we take off-duty people and put them in the positions,” Mr. Sellers said.
Methodically and with painstaking precision, he described what happens when a regular is absent, and the more labyrinthine matter of replacing firefighters who leave.
Conserving Dollars
“Here is where the city is saving some money,” he said. “We recently had seven vacancies, through retirement and for other reasons. So we had to hire back for those persons until we had everyone hired, trained and in place.
“The city is not paying for the people who normally would be there,” the fire chief said, emphasizing that the replacement process is lengthy.
While the actual training period is a modest eight weeks, the entire hiring procedure spans a half-year, according to Mr. Sellers.
“Here is what happens in the previous four months,” he said. “There is the testing process, where candidates take a written and an oral. Those are scored. After that, we make selections, followed by background investigations that are very thorough.
“From the background investigations, selections are made. They are given a conditional job offer. That allows the city to conduct medical, psychological and lie detector tests.
Not Through Yet
“After all of those steps, we give the candidates opportunities to give their current employers two weeks of notice.
“We have a start date for the tower, two months of training, and when they come out into the field, they are on probation for a year.”
Even though the replacement system appears to be elaborate and complicated, Mr. Sellers insisted that the department means to be efficient.
“We try to project ahead,” the chief said. “How many vacancies are we going to have? How many retirements do we anticipate (in a 5½-dozen member department), say, in December?
“If we have a good idea that we have five, we backtrack six months or even earlier. We start the process, in anticipation of putting five people through the entire process I described, getting through the testing and all. We try to get them on the job as close to the people retiring as we can.
“But let’s say we don’t,” said Mr. Sellers, “and the vacancies are out there. The city is not paying salary or benefits to an employee who has not yet been hired. So the city is saving that money. What they are paying is for the employee they already have, but they are paying the employee time and a half.”
One final detail remained to be inserted by the chief.
“The benefits (paid) an employee right now is more than 50 percent (of his salary). This means the city is actually saving money by having vacancies and by paying an existing employee rather than hiring a new employee.”
(To be continued)
