Staff shortages cause OT, chief says
The police chief said some overages can’t be avoided.
HUBBARD — City council has asked that every department in the city strictly adhere to budgets established at the beginning of the year, but the police chief says his overtime will likely be high until more people are hired.
Several members of council have said they are not interested in adding money to various line items in the budget at the end of the year to make up for money spent above the appropriated amounts.
The city, in previous years, would transfer funds at year’s end to balance line items.
A letter from city Auditor Michael Villano to council and department heads last week says a first-quarter review shows several departments with overtime expenses above the expected range at this point in the year.
“I want to remind everyone that this is a 12-month budget. Upon 100 percent exhaustion of line-item budgets, my office will no longer authorize or issue purchase orders or checks for those line items. Council has been very clear with line-item expenses,” Villano said in the letter.
Police Chief Martin Kanetsky said he controls most line-item purchases, staying well within budget.
Some line-item overages, however, are necessary and simply cannot be avoided, he said.
According to Kanetsky, the department is in need of part-time dispatchers to fill the void when full-time dispatchers are on vacation or off work.
“When you deal with bargaining unit overtime, that is not my overtime. That is overtime dictated by the contract,” he said. “When a dispatcher requests time off, we have overtime. If I don’t have a part-time dispatcher to fill in, I am running into overtime at a patrolman’s rate of pay.”
The overtime pay for work in dispatching prompted a second letter from the auditor’s office to the police department and council.
The letter says that $6,672 had been moved from the dispatchers’ overtime line item and placed in the police overtime line item to cover overtime paid out of the police fund.
Kanetsky said the department will be doing civil service testing in mid-May.
He hopes that any overtime issues will be alleviated once the city hires part-time dispatchers to pick up the slack in that department.
The city tried over the last year to fill part-time dispatcher positions with little success.
Kanetsky said the applicants on that previous list were weeded out for various reasons.
Kanetsky said the department is also down two officers.
He said the reduced manpower will make a request to council for additional overtime funding inevitable.
“I guarantee I will be back asking for more money for overtime, and it’s not because of mismanagement,” he said.
jgoodwin@vindy.com