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Council approves assistant fire chief contract after heated discussion over timing and overtime rules
Summary
Algonac City Council voted June 16 to approve an employment agreement for Nathaniel Dome as assistant to the fire chief after members raised concerns the contract arrived after the budget process and asked for clearer written terms on overtime and budget impact.
Algonac’s City Council approved an employment agreement for Nathaniel Dome, the assistant to the Algonac Fire Department chief, following an extended discussion about contract timing, overtime calculation and budget disclosure.
City Manager Bryson and multiple council members debated whether the proposed contract — which updates hourly and overtime rules and references an annual salary figure included in the fiscal budget — should have been submitted earlier for review during the city’s budget process. Several council members said they received the contract language only shortly before the meeting and asked for the rewritten terms to be provided in writing so they could verify budget impacts.
A central point of debate was how overtime would be calculated. The presented language proposes treating paid time off and vacation hours as hours toward the overtime threshold so that overtime (time-and-a-half) would apply after employees exceed a 53-hour work week; proponents said the change is intended to ensure parity with other departments so employees called back while on leave receive overtime rather than straight time. Opponents raised concerns about the budgetary effect of counting PTO/vacation toward overtime and asked for data on how frequently such callbacks occur.
The document discussed an hourly rate of $26.94 (with an indicated upgrade to the DPW utility-2 rate in a later step, noted in the wage schedule as approximately $30.22) and referenced an annual salary figure discussed during budget work ($49,000 was cited during debate). Council members asked staff to clarify those figures and where the funding would come from; Bryson said the fire department budget contains funds for the position and that the compensation is covered under the approved fiscal plan.
After debate and requests for clarification, the council voted by roll call to approve the employment contract as presented. Council members also asked administration to provide the written, clean contract language and supporting budget detail for the record.
Next steps: administration to circulate the finalized written contract text and budget impact analysis to council and proceed with implementation in the fire department payroll.
