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Committee questions police overtime and new schedule after sidebar agreement
Summary
Budget committee members pressed staff on how a new police scheduling agreement and a 43‑hour workweek affect overtime projections, raised concerns about $87,000 of additional overtime in the draft budget and asked for clearer documentation before recommendations to the board.
Committee members spent a substantial portion of the March 4 meeting on police staffing, overtime calculations and how a recently negotiated sidebar agreement changes scheduling and pay.
Joe, the staff presenter, explained the contract framework and how the department’s scheduling proposal translates into overtime exposure. "After 43 hours, it becomes time and a half," Joe said when the committee asked how overtime is calculated under the 43‑hour week in the collective bargaining/sidebar agreement.
Members said they had used the chief’s staffing schedule to model annual overtime and expressed concern that the schedule’s built‑in coverage still leaves a sizable additional overtime estimate in the draft budget. One participant reported that, under the posted rotation, the weekly overtime tally for the three primary patrol positions calculated out to about $4,549 per week (roughly $236,548 annually), and that an additional $87,000 of overtime had been included above that amount in the packet; committee members asked staff to reconcile those figures.
Why it matters: the committee noted the change from the town’s prior patrol model to a near 24‑7 staffing posture and asked whether the transition and its budgetary effects had been publicly debated. Several committee members said the shift in coverage and the sidebar agreement had been discussed and negotiated but urged staff to provide documentation showing when and how the schedule change took effect and how the overtime numbers were calculated.
Details from the discussion
- Schedule and overtime: Committee members reviewed a duty rotation the chief provided and asked how longevity and anniversary dates affect step increases shown in Appendix A. Staff said anniversary timing can change when wages take effect and agreed to check whether the packet double‑counts overtime where wage increases and overtime overlap.
- Contract timing and public process: Some members asked whether the change to continuous coverage had been approved in a public forum. Staff said portions of collective bargaining are negotiated off the public record (sidebar agreements) but that the resulting agreement is now in effect. Committee members requested copies of the sidebar or a summary explaining the implementation dates so the committee can assess annualized impacts.
- Reconciling overtime totals: Committee members asked staff to provide a clear, line‑by‑line calculation showing how the base‑schedule overtime and the additional overtime included in the packet were derived and whether the packet’s totals include vacation, training and court time or double‑count those hours.
Quote
"After 43 hours, it becomes time and a half," Joe said when explaining how overtime is computed under the current agreement.
Ending
The committee asked staff to return with reconciled overtime math, documentation of implementation timing for the sidebar agreement and clarity on whether the chief’s schedule or the collective bargaining appendix governs pay step effective dates. Those materials were requested in time for the committee’s final recommendations to the board next week.
