SAFETY SERVICES Overtime drops for Warren police and fire units

Total overtime rose slightly from 2002 to 2003.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Although heavy rain and snow increased overtime for some city departments from 2002 to 2003, additional personnel in the police and fire departments allowed those departments to decrease overtime costs.
Overtime for all departments totaled $764,530 in 2003, up slightly from 2002's $747,788.
The fire department's overtime decreased from $123,777 in 2002 to $51,161 in 2003.
Chief Ken Nussle attributed the higher 2002 overtime to fewer firefighters. Because of minimal staffing requirements of 17 firefighters per shift, additional personnel had to be called out to meet that level if someone was out sick or on vacation.
The city hired 17 firefighters in 2002, the last in December 2002, bringing the number to 75 and reducing the need for overtime. The idea is to schedule 18 per shift, allowing a cushion if someone calls off. Having more firefighters on staff gives the chief more flexibility to schedule.
A firefighter with up to one year of service earns $11.43 per hour, and assistant chiefs earn $24.84 hourly.
Besides covering for sick and vacation time, overtime also is used during an emergency call-out or holdovers to another shift.
A holdover occurs when firefighters from a shift are held over into another shift because additional personnel are needed to battle a blaze or other emergency.
Explanations
A firefighter held over for a second alarm must be paid for a minimum of two hours.
An emergency call-out, for which a firefighter must be paid a minimum of four hours, occurs when an emergency demands more personnel than those on a shift.
Regular overtime and overtime needed for court in the police department both decreased from 2002 to 2003. Regular overtime dropped from $144,962 in 2002 to $109,191 last year. Regular overtime is needed when an accident or other emergency call happens near the end of a shift and officers may stay over to complete the work, or when additional personnel must be called to work because someone has called off.
Police Chief John Mandopoulos attributed the overtime reduction to additional officers hired last year. But he stresses that the department still isn't at the 84-officer level that was promised to residents before the 2001 income tax passed.
The city hired 13 officers between 2002 and last year, although one of those officers left for another department. The department has 76 officers.
"If I had 84 officers, I could get overtime down to almost nothing," the chief said.
Police pay ranges from $14.07 per hour for officers with up to one year of service to $30.71 per hour for captains.
Court overtime, required when an officer came in off-shift to file charges, has been reduced through the narcotics division. Rather than having the officers who make an arrest handle the charges or a drug case, it's all done through the narcotics division, the chief said.
Holiday overtime and grant overtime increased from 2002 to 2003. Holiday overtime results when a holiday falls on an officer's regular work schedule. An officer earns time and a half for holiday pay.
That increased from $100,527 in 2002 to $104,195 last year.
"I can't control when holidays fall," Mandopoulos said.
Grant overtime is time worked outside a regular shift that is paid using state or federal grant money such as Cops in Shops, traffic or DUI enforcement. No city money is used to pay grant overtime.
Grant overtime increased from $44,226 in 2002 to $62,205 last year.
Manpower shortage
Of the top 10 overtime earners in city employment for last year, six of them were in the police department. As the causes, Mandopoulos points to the number of officers' being lower than 84, plus those on leave such as for injury, illness or administrative leave, and those on light duty.
Robert Stahl, street superintendent in the operations department, pointed to heavy snow and ice in the winter and drenching rains last summer as the reason that department's overtime expenses more than doubled.
Overtime in the street maintenance fund increased from $50,631 in 2002 to $102,519 last year. Pay in the operations department ranges from $9.72 per hour for laborers to $29.55 hourly for a superintendent.
Besides plowing and salting roads in winter months, which required overtime, street crews also racked up overtime responding to flooding last spring and summer. The department was called out to clear downed tree limbs and to clean up after accidents.
"Our department was on call 24 hours a day every day during the floods," Stahl said. "Crews were out during the floods setting up barricades, assisting the fire and police departments."
Tom Angelo, director of the water pollution control center, also blamed last summer's floods for overtime increases in the sewer maintenance and stormwater utility funds.
Weather problems
Sewer maintenance overtime increased from $6,192 in 2002 to $13,309 in 2003, and stormwater utility overtime increased from $3,127 to $9,771 during the same period. The stormwater utility was created by city council in mid-2002.
Angelo said he works to keep overtime down through scheduling so that when unforeseen events like last year's floods hit, the overtime costs are lower.
The number of calls received determines the response and the overtime required. Pay for sewer maintenance and stormwater utility employees ranges from $11.88 hourly for laborers to $29.55 per hour for a superintendent.
"If we only get one or two complaint calls, one crew will get called out and that's one or two men," Angelo said. "But if we get 40 or 50 complaint calls, we send four crews out."
Like the street department, sewer maintenance and stormwater utility crews worked a lot during last summer's floods.
"We had flooded streets and people stranded in their cars," Angelo said.
Flooded basements caused some residents' pilot lights to go out, producing a safety hazard. The departments worked with the fire department to turn gas off to prevent injury.
denise_dick@vindy.com