City Probes Overtime Monitor’s Overtime

A fire lieutenant charged with helping get the department’s overtime costs under control authorized himself to collect over $5,500 on a vacation week. Now city officials are asking: Did he, too, rip off the city for overtime?

“We’re actively investigating this matter thoroughly” as a possible violation, said city Labor Relations Director Marcus Paca. ​“We take it very seriously.”

The lieutenant in question, Assistant Drillmaster Miguel D. Rosado, denied any wrongdoing.

Rosado’s receipt of thousands of overtime dollars for the week of Nov. 4 – 11 prompted first the city controller, then the labor relations director and top fire brass, to question not just whether he had the right to authorize himself all that money, but whether the episode exposes deeper problems.

Rosado, the department’s assistant drillmaster (and one of four candidates this week in an election for firefighters union president), has been working in the chief’s office since January on a special assignment out of the chief’s office: planning and implementing the use of Firehouse software, a reporting system to track, among other issues, work hours and overtime. (It also helps with report writing and documentation of training, two other problems facing the department.) He received a temporary raise as part of the arrangement.

The introduction of the software was part of a broader effort to get overtime under control, monitor its use, and have it operate more fairly. The overall effort, buttressed by a boost in promotions and new hires, is paying off. Weekly overtime costs have dropped from over $300,000 to under $80,000 from this time last year, according to city Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter.

Rosado took the week of Nov. 4 – 11 off for vacation.

But he reported to work at the training academy. All week. He ended up getting paid over $5,500, according to several people familiar with the situation — time and a half of his regular pay.

He OK’d his own overtime assignment. He claimed he had the authority.

After learning of the payment, City Controller Daryl Jones sent an email to fire and other city officials on Nov. 24.

“There is no provision to pay instructors time and half for coming in on vacation,” Jones wrote. ​“This individual should not have gotten paid time and a half when he came in on his vacation. I am also concerned on how an individual can replace himself.

​“I will also make sure the software does not allow this to happen in the future. There is a clear breakdown in management allowing firefighter to assign himself overtime to replace himself.”

Chief Allyn Wright assigned Assistant Chief Matt Marcarelli to respond to Jones’s email. Marcarelli reported in a Nov. 23 email that Rosado had not received approval for the overtime and that the chief’s office never knew of it. One of the days Rosado worked, pitching in with a training class on his regular day off, would be considered authorized, but not the additional hours, Marcarelli concluded.

He also wrote that Rosado shouldn’t have been paid time and a half for that overtime. Paca in an interview agreed, saying that time and a half applies only when line firefighters are called in overtime to help put out a fire because of a lack of staffing.

In an interview Monday, Rosado said the amount he earned that week ​“might have closer to the $4,000 range.” He said two instructors were on vacation at the academy that week, and recruit classes were going on. So he was needed. ​“I happened to the only one available,” he said, because two other instructors were on vacation out of state.

Jimmy Kottage, the firefighters’ union president, on Monday challenged the claim that Rosado’s bosses didn’t know about the overtime. ​“They should have known. We have this [new] multimilion-dollar computer system. I’m more than skeptical the chiefs didn’t know,” he said. He also blamed the confusion partly on the fact that the department has now an assistant chief for operations because of an unresolved dispute between the city and Pat Egan, who has been on paid leave from the position for more than a year.

Jones, Wright, Marcarelli, and Carter also declined comment when reached by the Independent.

Who Messed With The Software?

A second wrinkle developed in the case. After officials confronted Rosado, according to Paca and to emails reviewed by the Independent, other department officials lost access to the Firehouse software. They couldn’t check in on who was getting how much overtime, or with what approvals.

Rosado ​“was the only one who had access to the system” at the time it went down, Paca said. ​“He apparently went into the system and deleted everybody else’s rights to enter data.”

Rosado denied that accusation.

He called the problem a routine glitch. Those glitches happen often he said. ​“Passwords needed to be reset. Even right now over the weekend, it had a couple of issues.”

Assistant Chief Marcarrelli offered this different view in a Nov. 18 email to Chief Wright, Jones, and city Corporation Counsel John Rose:

“At approximately 13:00 I was notified by the Acting Deputy Chief that he no longer had access to the system. He needed to staff the night shift and had no access. Chief Gould contacted Miguel who indicated to him that he could no longer handle any Firehouse Software issues because of the labor action.

​“Later in the day, I attempted to log-in as well and immediately noticed that I had been restricted from access as well. The system was in lock down and only allowed the most basic features of the system, yet the most important part, the staffing module, was locked down.

​“I immediately contacted Firehouse Software to determine what the issue was with the system. Tom Pond from Firehouse Software indicated that system access had been changed.

​“Checking the logon log, Miguel had logged in during the morning for approximately one hour, then again around 1pm. At that point I restricted his access to the system. At 0800 this morning I again attempted to resolve the issues both myself and with Firehouse Tech Support to no avail.

​“I checked access again and Miguel’s login history was now blank. I am working with Firehouse to see when and where specific changes were made and by whom.

​“I cannot help but be alarmed that the timing of this but I am concerned that this could constitute an illegal job action and possibly other serious offenses. We lost hours of productivity as a result of this and disrupted the staffing of the shift both last night and today and the system is still down in parts.”

Labor Dispute

Rosado’s special assignment itself caused controversy. It resulted from a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between Paca and Kottage. (Click here for a story about a series of controversial MOUs, of which this was one.)

AFSCME Local 3144 filed both a grievance and a state labor complaint over the assignment. The union is arguing that the work should, by contract, have been assigned to members of other departments represented by 3144, not the fire department. The union is seeking to have those employees compensated for the work to which the union claims they were entitled.

“The work belongs to Local 3144. They can’t give away our work without our permission,” AFSCME President Cherlyn Poindexter said.

Paca responded that the MOU was proper. ​“We did our diligence,” he said. ​“Implementation of software is different from maintenance of software. If it’s maintenance IT [information technology] would handle it. But because Miguel worked specifically on implementation, he was the only one who had the knowledge to work with the outside contractor on the software.” Paca said city Chief Administrative Officer Mike Carter had requested the special assignment for Rosado for that reason.

“Nobody lost time. Nobody lost work. Nobody lost money,” Paca said.

Although Rosado has completed the special assignment, the labor board will still hear the complaint.