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Anthony Capuano’s overtime gravy train has come to an end — and boy is he glad.
Capuano (pictured), who runs the fire department’s mechanic shop, more than doubled his paycheck in 2011, to $136,565.35, thanks to the $69,106.58 in overtime he got. He already topped $100,000 in overall compensation this calendar year by Nov. 1.
Now the department has two new people working in his three-person shop. So Capuano can got out to dinner with his wife without taking a separate car for the likely event he might be called in.
Capuano has been the biggest, but not the only big earner benefiting from an ongoing overtime problem in the city’s police and fire departments.
New figures from the city’s budget office show the departments jointly running about $1 million over their overtime budgets through the first three months of this fiscal year, which began July 1. City Budget Director Joe Clerkin said his projections show the police running $2.7 million over budget and the fire department $1.5 million over by the fiscal year’s end — if officials don’t take action to stem it.
“It’s a worst-case scenario,” Clerkin said.
And officials are taking steps to rein in the costs. One immediate step: Hire as many cops and firefighters as possible, as soon as possible, to relieve the sworn officers working long extra hours to fill in gaps. Both departments have been running far short of personnel — while crimes and fires continue demanding their attention.
The issue arose last month at a hearing of the Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee. Board President Jorge Perez, who has been keeping watch on overtime for years, asked for more detailed breakdowns of the overtime figures so the city can try to get a handle on the costs early in the fiscal year, not later.
The issue arose again this week at a meeting between aldermanic leaders and city officials — a meeting about a host of looming budget problems this fiscal year, not just the overtime problem. City officials plan to meet Friday to start looking at measures to rein in the deficit before it grows more.
Click here for a spreadsheet of total pay from Jan. 1 through Nov. 2, 2012, for four groups of city workers: sworn cops, civilian police department employees, firefighters, civilian fire department employees. The spreadsheet shows total pay broken down into salary, overtime, extra-duty jobs, and “other,” a “catch-all category for compensation such as longevity, educational assistance, clothing allowance, shift differential, fill in differential, etc.,” according to the city’s Finance Department.
The department prepared the spreadsheet at Alderman Perez’s request. It showed two fire battalion chief collecting more than $200,000 this year, more than half of it in overtime. Two police supervisors racked up more than $70,000 in overtime, three others over $50,000.
Perez noted that not just sworn cops and firefighters have been racking up overtime, but civilian employees have, too.
“You can understand [overtime over-runs] when you’re 80 cops short and you still want to protect the city,” Perez said. “When you’re 95 firefighters short, you still need firefighters manning the truck. But I don’t understand why a mechanic earned” some $70,000 just in overtime last calendar year and more than $40,00 already this year.
Civilians On Call, Too
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That chief mechanic, Capuano, earned that money being on call pretty much all the time, he said. His repair shop has three positions. One had been unfilled for well more than a year, he said. The other remaining employee was nearing retirement, so he “didn’t want any of the overtime.”
The city delayed buying new equipment to save money, meaning the older apparatus needed more repair, Capuano said. Also, people don’t realize that a mechanic has to come to the scene of any major fire to monitor equipment at the scene. “It’s not all turning wrenches,” he said.
“I pretty much gave up my family doing that. I was on call 24 – 7. Ask my wife: Every time we went to a function, we took different vehicles. I’m always on call,” said Capuano, who has been on the job 15 years.
“I’m not complaining. It’s my job. Am I glad it’s over? Absolutely. It makes life easier.”
Capuano does still need to be prepared for emergency calls; he responded to a 5:30 a.m. fire in Newhallville this week (pictured), for instance. But the overtime demands have decreased significantly since the city filled those two other mechanic positions with new full-time people, he said.
Police civilians ran up $1.097 million in overtime in 2012 through November, more than a fifth of their cumulative salaries. One 911 dispatcher picked up more than $40,000 in overtime from Jan. 1 through Nov. 1; another five racked up more than $30,000.
The department was running low on 911 operators, according to Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts; that’s why the overtime ran so high. Over the course of the year it has been hiring and training new ones, and the overtime is dropping.
A Tricky Calculus
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Overtime costs for sworn firefighters involves trickier math. In any 28-day period, firefighters earn their straight hourly pay for the first 44 hours they work in overtime. After that it pops up to time and a half. So, noted Smuts (pictured), sometimes it costs the taxpayers less to have a firefighter work overtime than it does to have another full-time position created to pick up the slack.
However, there is no question the department has been running low of needed personnel in certain ranks. It currently has four empty deputy chief positions, one for each shift. Only two of eight battalion chief positions are filled. That means the two battalion chiefs, Paul Sandella and Patrick Andrews, have had to work long extra hours to fill those gaps. They’ve each picked up around $114,000 in overtime pay since 2012 started.
The city has tried to conduct a promotional exam to fill those eight positions, Smuts said, but the test itself is tied up in arbitration with the union. Which means many long nights and days to come for Sandella and Andrews, and time-and-a-half tabs for taxpayers. Meanwhile, the city has also been actively recruiting new firefighters to fill at least half the 80 to 90 department vacancies.
The police department faces a similar problem: It has about 70 fewer sworn cops than the 450 it needs, or the 420 it has averaged over the past decade, according to Smuts. Twelve newly trained officers are in field training; the academy is expected to graduate another 28 by year’s end, at which point a new class will begin. Promotional exams have been underway as well for supervisory ranks, which have been depleted by retirements. (Click here to read about a challenge to the sergeant exam.)
While reduced staffing levels explain much of the overtime problem, Smuts agreed with Perez that the city needs to keep scrutinizing other factors, such as changing long-term staffing needs as well as the “other earnings” category. That category includes, among other compensation, payment for sick time.
“It’s both a forest and a trees issue to look at,” Smuts said. “It’s a legitimate source of concern.”
I am interested to know more about the extra-duty work that police officers do for road construction. Is that paid for directly by police departments or do construction companies, utilities, etc pay for this service? Can any NHI readers explain how this works?
I have observed that everywhere in Connecticut even the smallest side street road work requires a police officer. Even in New York City, when there is road work cones and/or a flag-man are enough to keep it safe. While I understand that large construction projects or road work on the interstate require police to direct traffic or ensure that motorists slow down...what's the rationale for having a police officer present for minor work on minor streets?