BUDGET TRANSFER Sharon council rebuffs funds for police overtime

Council wants a meeting with ranking police officers to discuss spending.
SHARON, Pa. -- City council has turned down a request for a budget transfer to provide an additional $20,000 for police general duty overtime. Council pulled two $10,000 budget transfers from a list of 13 various transfers requested by Finance Director Michael Gasparich at Thursday's council meeting.
Gasparich said the police transfers were to cover department overtime for the rest of this year, though it might not spend all the money. The department had $60,000 in its general duty overtime fund for this year.
Spending out of control
Fred Hoffman, council president, said it appears that overtime spending is out of control. He said council wants a meeting with ranking police officers to talk about overtime.
Mayor David O. Ryan said police haven't overspent their entire budget nor will they. There is sufficient money left over in training and special school police accounts to cover the $20,000 in transfer requests, he said.
Hoffman asked how the overtime money was being spent. Police Capt. Michael Menster told council that most of the overtime is incurred because of incidents beyond the city's control, such as storms that require calling out extra officers to redirect traffic.
Special events
Some scheduled special events in the city also required a lot of overtime, he said, noting the America Sings! weekend program at Sharon High School last spring cost the department $5,000 in overtime.
The summer downtown car cruise-in cost $3,000 in overtime, Menster said.