Overtime Bills Reach $2.3M

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by zak stone | Apr 14, 2010 12:07 pm

(9) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: City Budget

Zak Stone Photo As the city’s police and fire chiefs presented budgets to the Board of Aldermen, they again came under fire for spending too much on overtime costs.

The two chiefs responded that they have made all the cuts they can. They said they will focus on ramping up strategies for income generation, including increased ticketing and charging for emergency health care services, to fund their budgets.

The discussion took place at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Board of Alderman’s Finance Committee in City Hall, as the first wave of city department leaders partook in the annual tradition of defending their budgets before the aldermanic committee.

The debate between Hill Alderman Jorge Perez, Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts, new Police Chief Frank Limon, and Fire Chief Michael Grant invited déjà vu from last year’s meeting, when Smuts and Perez sparred about the perennial issue of police overtime.

“I have a hard time understanding $2.3 million in overtime charges,” Perez told Smuts. The Fire and Police Departments are projected to bill $501189 and $1,832,725 in overtime, respectively, for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Police and Fire make up the two most expensive city departments, in that order (excluding the Board of Ed, which is not considered a city department).

Perez pointed out that most positions on both forces have been filled, which ought to reduce the need for overtime work.

Members of the committee expressed concern with the finances of the Fire Department in particular. It is projected to rack up $41,002 worth of deficit this year. Fire Department costs have come under scrutiny by aldermen in recent years as a solution for closing the city’s budget gaps.

Smuts said that perfecting “how the department should respond to medical issues is going to be critical” for solving this year’s financial woes. Training more firemen as paramedics could earn the department more revenue by charging for first response care.

“All our firefighters are trained at the EMT level,” which enables them to provide basic care, Chief Grant told the committee. Fewer are trained as paramedics.

“Why can’t all the firefighters become paramedics?” asked Downtown Alderwoman Bitsie Clark. She suggested that they would need less workers on the force if more of them had medical expertise.

“Ultimately that would be the ideal thing to do,” replied Chief Grant.

Smuts confirmed that the department is working toward this goal, which will “save more lives and provide more revenue.” But it will take time and money to train the firefighters.

Overall, Fire Department deficits have declined over the past few years, from as high as $885,931 in 2007, Smuts pointed out.

Policing the Budget

Chief Limon, who’s been on the job for eight days, said that cutting overtime costs are part of his department’s new plans. He already put a memo out mandating that all overtime requests be approved by an assistant chief.

The Police Department’s budget represents a decrease of $1.3 million, or 3.4 percent, from last year’s total, but Smuts and Limon intend to get more for less.

Plans for next year including adding a new class of officers, a capital replacement plan set to include 12 new vehicles and $300,000 worth of weapon, ammo, and body armor, and working towards a more integrated, efficient force. “A lot of the systems are not connected together,” said Limon.

The Department will try to fund some of these expenditures partly through more aggressive ticketing. Smuts said that officers have been patrolling late-night hotspots, like the Dwight pizza mecca at the corner of Howe and Elm, in search of noise violations. The city net more than $20 per ticket, he said.

Increased ticketing will also help “establish more order,” especially in the Dwight area where recent shootings were partially “attributed to double parking” and other quality of life violations, said Smuts.

Smuts said that despite recent killings, “overall crime still continues a downward trend” of 10 percent from last year.

To read more city budget stories on this new page.

Comments

posted by: streever on April 14, 2010 1:04pm

Oh man, city wants noise ordinance?

STATE STREET
STATE STREET
STATE STREET!

If you spend any time on State between 10 & 1 on a weekday you will get dozens of tickets easily, with no work at all, and you will earn the ever-lasting respect & admiration of the countless neighbors who have complained the ENTIRE TIME I have lived in New Haven about the same exact issue over & over.

I’m sorry if you’re a motorcycle owner who likes to race up & down State Street & midnight, but for the love of god if this is what you like to do then don’t put on louder pipes as an after-market item. It’s ridiculous, rude, & totally inappropriate to wake people up at midnight because you want your bike to be loud.

posted by: 2Unique4U on April 14, 2010 2:20pm

Streever: There is a noise ordinance…See New Haven Code of General Ordinances, Title III, Chapter 18, Article II, Section 18-71 theu 18-90 - NOISE CONTROL. All the Chief Limon needs to do is enforce it.

posted by: Jeffrey Kerekes on April 14, 2010 4:26pm

Please sign the petition to cut the city budget by 10%. The mayor already proposes a 2% cut and we think the City should share the pain of a difficult economy and get to 10%. Sign the petition here:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/NewHaven/petition.html

posted by: City Hall Watch on April 14, 2010 5:39pm

Why does it take so much time and money to move firefighters to paramedics? Why not make that a requirement of getting the job for new hires; and why not mandate that everyone who wants to stay on the force, will have to take the classes to become one? Their job descriptions have to change to reflect the work they actually do. Otherwise, we’re mostly just driving the firetrucks to a medical call and the ambulance service is taking it from there.

Jorge is right though on the O.T. Two years ago, OT was justified because we had fewer firemen. It should be non-existent now that we’re up to full employment.

posted by: citysavior on April 14, 2010 9:16pm

I have a hard time understanding $2.3 million in overtime charges,” Perez told Smuts. The Fire and Police Departments are projected to bill $501189 and $1,832,725 in overtime, respectively, for the 2009-10 fiscal year.
come on jorgie which part don’t you understand?
when shooting and homicides rise in your neighborhood you call the District manager demanding police coverage. Then you call the chief and extra overtime beats are provided. Then the city takes money from the police budget just after the beginning of the fiscal year. Then money coming into the police department from fees and alarm registration,false alarms are rerouted to city funds. That’s why chief’s are not able to finish a year with a balanced budget. Whats up with all the money the city is saving in unfilled asst.chief,captain,lieutenant,Sergeant and detective positions? pay attention Chief Frank Limon some one is setting you up to fail. Pole camera’s cost lots of money you dont have here.

posted by: Shocked! on April 15, 2010 7:40am

Where is the accountability? When are heads going to roll. In professional sports coaches and managers are fired when they don’t perform. The Police Chief is new so he gets a reprieve. Maybe we need to look at who is really making the decisions and what they are really qualified to do. Why is the Fire Department so slow in moving towards a Emergency Medical Services delivery system. Emergency Medical Services has been around since Johnny Gage and the New Haven Fire Department is still operating pre-Emergency 51. What are the statistics in New Haven regarding the types of response? Wait a minute, maybe the gathering of that information is beyond the capabilities of the leadership.

posted by: blue dog dem on April 15, 2010 2:21pm

CHW,

Their job descriptions cannot change without collective bargaining or the City going into Chapter 7 bankruptcy which would then allow us to reopen the contracts. Otherwise we have to negotiate all job responsibilities which will let JDS give away more of the store the next negotiating session. New hires can be subject to the new rules, but no existing employees can be compelled to change responsibilities unless it is bargained.

posted by: shrek on April 15, 2010 4:51pm

The fire dept under the direction of Chief Grant has not hired paramedics in years. As it stands now there is overtime for paramedics every single day and night shift because Chief Grant has failed to fill these very important positions. There are currently 8-9 paramedics, the NHFD should have a minimum of 16. They should have been hiring medics for the last 15 years and they would save $100k in ovetime for medics yearly. Also how about holding Firefighters and Officera accountable, the is one female firefighter that was out of work for all of 2009 on some bogus injury and now she is on vacation using her 2009 vacation time.How is this possible, she was not at work for 12 months. Chief Grant does not posses the administrative skills a college graduate would have to fix these problems and neither does Chief Dumas..they both need to go!

posted by: point, counter-point on April 16, 2010 11:09am

Some good points, in an ideal world where fire department hiring was based on merit, and reasonably intelligent hirees were the norm, we could expect that firefighter emts could be cross trained as paramedics.

Truthfully, most firefigters on the job now, could not meet the rigorous training required in paramedic school.

Hiring only medics, is a ridiculous suggestion to a city that scrifices everything for the sake of diversity. There just aren’t that many minority medics.

Academically,existing fd employees would just not cut it in medic training. As far as financial prudency is concerned and logistcally speaking, we really don’t need 370 paramedics, we could easily put 16 to work, and from this point on continually hire medics in every class. To replenish those who meet the 10 contractual obligation. All nice thoughts, but as long as the 3 chiefs we have are in office, they will continually fight ems enhancements.

We have a great system, but it has not prgressed in years largely due to the adminstration.

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