Advisory Committee members reviewed police and fire overtime and pressed for options to reduce overtime by funding permanent positions.
Liz said overtime paid by the police and fire departments was large enough that it could be used to hire additional staff. "The dollar amount paid out in overtime would cover a full-time paramedic and cover another full-time police officer," she said. Members asked for clarity on how overtime is calculated and whether overtime sometimes includes hours coded after use of vacation or other leave.
Why it matters: Committee members expressed safety and staffing concerns. Bev urged caution about employees working extended shifts, noting fatigue risks for first responders. Committee members also discussed the source of funding for additional firefighter/paramedic positions, including the ambulance receipts fund, and the limits of one-time state grants.
Discussion included: the long training time for paramedics; the fact that ambulance receipts have grown in recent years (a member cited growth from a couple hundred thousand dollars eight years ago to about $6.7 million now); the possibility of retaining some ambulance receipts year-to-year for staffing; and that some state emergency funding targeted larger cities (the committee was told a particular community-services fund used by the governor is limited to municipalities with populations greater than 50,000). Members proposed asking department heads for weekly overtime reports and verifying overtime calculation rules under current union contracts.
There was no formal vote on staffing; committee members requested documentation on overtime totals and on how overtime is computed so they could assess whether converting recurring overtime into salaried positions is financially feasible.