Stowsentry.com - Police, fire overtime expenses drop in 2009

by Mike Lesko

Associate Editor

Stow -- Promised efforts by the safety forces chiefs to cut overtime seem to have been successful.

The city's police and fire departments each spent around $100,000 less on overtime in 2009 than in 2008. Both were also below their overtime budget -- police by more than $99,000 and fire by more than $120,000.

"Our fire and police chiefs have done a lot of restructuring," Mayor Karen Fritschel said. "That has really cut down overtime."

In 2009, the police department spent $250,753 on overtime, down from $366,595 in 2008. It was also below the $350,000 originally budgeted.

The fire department spent $220,425, a drop from $345,053 spent in 2008. It was also below the $344,000 budgeted.

Total payroll for the police department decreased from $3,601,217 in 2008 to $3,541,459 in 2009.

Total payroll for the fire department increased from $3,929,204 in 2008 to $3,972,224 in 2009.

Police overtime

Police Chief Louis Dirker said a key part of reducing overtime in his department was creating a captain's position.

"It enabled us to streamline the administrative operations of the department," Dirker said. "The captain assumed many of the administrative responsibilities that the lieutenants had performed, and I assumed the rest."

Dirker said before, there were three lieutenants assigned on day shift. Filling in for their absences cost overtime, he said.

Dirker said another way overtime was cut was rewriting dispatch procedures so that non-emergency calls were only assigned to the district car.

Police Lt. Anne Stirm said some money must be spent on overtime to fulfill state-mandated training. And Dirker said absences can also increase overtime.

"Each shift has what we call 'shift minimums,'" Dirker said. "Although we do not allow officers to take time off if it will take us below the minimum, there are times when it cannot be helped -- such as when an officer is off sick."

Dirker said his department will continue to work on keeping overtime down in 2010, but it is not always easy.

"The problem with predicting overtime expenditures for safety forces is that if a number of emergencies of a long duration occur, they can cripple your overtime budget," he said.

Fire overtime

Fire Chief Bill Kalbaugh said his department cut back on overtime by doing "an additional restructure of our promoted ranks and adding three lieutenants to better manage mandatory shift fill within the officer ranks."

A training division was also created to reduce overtime. Before, such state-mandated training took place at an outside facility at overtime rates, Kalbaugh said.

Now, "we can do all of this training in house with no overtime cost," he said.

Kalbaugh said the fire department must have at least 10 personnel, including three promoted officers, on duty to operate three fire stations.

"Anytime we drop below the required minimum staffing, we must fill with overtime," he said.

Kalbaugh said he is hopeful that the department can stay close to last year's overtime figures.

"But this will be challenging due to the fact that we will start the year with four vacancies that are not likely to be filled due to tough economic times," Kalbaugh said, referring to the city's hiring freeze.

Kalbaugh added that not all overtime is bad.

"We use overtime to provide necessary manpower on an as-needed basis," Kalbaugh said. "To totally eliminate overtime would require a substantial increase in manpower to provide the same level of service that we currently enjoy."

E-mail: mlesko@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-686-3917