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Finance director clarifies police and fire outside-duty billing separate from overtime
Summary
Finance Director Sullivan told the committee that police and fire outside duties are paid at negotiated rates and are billed separately to requesting entities; outside-duty revenue and expense are recorded separately and not commingled with standard overtime budgeting.
At the April 8 meeting, Finance Director Sullivan clarified how the city accounts for police and fire outside-duty work and how that differs from overtime budgeting.
Sullivan told the finance committee that outside duties (details) for police and firefighters are paid at separate, negotiated rates. The entity requesting the outside duty — frequently related to traffic control for construction or crowd-control events — is billed for the service. Those revenues and corresponding expenses are recorded in the departments’ budgets and are not commingled with standard overtime payroll calculations, Sullivan said.
Sullivan also explained why overtime budgets do not always match actual overtime spending: the city budgets for full staffing levels; vacancies drive overtime, and bringing overtime budgets to actuals could require offsetting cuts in salary and benefits. He said fire staffing has historically been more stable than police or dispatch and that prior spikes in overtime were sometimes driven by military deployments; current overtime variation is more tied to call volume and callbacks.
The committee had no further questions and moved on to the next agenda item.
