By JOHN HOWELL Although overtime costs for the Warwick Fire Department continue to run ahead of budget for the current fiscal year, Chief James McLaughlin reported Monday a dramatic decline in overtime hours since 24 recruits officially joined the force
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Although overtime costs for the Warwick Fire Department continue to run ahead of budget for the current fiscal year, Chief James McLaughlin reported Monday a dramatic decline in overtime hours since 24 recruits officially joined the force in November. Also, while the overtime costs are running ahead of schedule for the year, salary expenditures are lagging because of the department’s inability to fill all shifts earlier in the year.
McLaughlin reported that there were 4,082 overtime hours in October that dropped to 1,808 in November.
But with 24 new members, which actually gave the department eight more firefighters than a full complement for the department, overtime hours dropped to 561 hours in December and, as of Monday, were 404 for January.
The budget picture isn’t as pretty. As of Jan. 27, the department had spent $1,166,121 of its $1,340,000 overtime budget, according to the city finance department.
Nonetheless, City Finance Director Ernest Zmyslinski sees an improving picture.
“The overtime is getting reduced,” Zmyslinski said.
He noted expenditures in the department’s salary budget of $16,565,935 are down slightly from where they would normally be at this time of year. From that account, $9,568,491, or about 56 percent, has been spent to date. The norm at completion of the seventh month of the fiscal year would be a 58 percent budget expenditure.
Key from McLaughlin’s perspective is that the department is now at a full complement that gives each of the four platoons six “floaters” to cover all scheduled vacations. That wasn’t happening prior to the new recruits when ranks were down by 16 and the department had to rely on overtime personnel to not only fill in for unanticipated vacancies resulting from illness or accidents but also predictable gaps in manpower resulting from vacations.
“In 2017 we should have all vacation slots covered by full-time firefighters,” said McLaughlin. “When you have a pool of guys, that’s when you get a handle on overtime,” he added.
Since the full class of 24 recruits was hired, there has been one retirement, meaning that the department now has seven more personnel than budgeted. Mayor Scott Avedisian said he chose to hire the full 24, rather than the 16 needed at the time, since unemployment costs would run close to employment and there would be a ready pool when retirements occurred.
Also, the extra personnel enable the department to fill those unexpected vacancies caused by illness and accidents.
“It was the right thing to do,” McLaughlin said of the decision to hire the full class.
It’s an opinion shared by Zmyslinski, who pointed out that until firefighters have a system like police, there’s going to be periods of extended vacancies requiring overtime. In order to fill vacancies, the fire department draws from a list of applicants to create an academy class that then goes through 18 weeks of training before graduating. The police department, on the other hand, can turn to the police academy run by the state to train recruits pretty much as they are needed.
McLaughlin said firefighters are looking to likewise run a statewide academy that would give departments the ability to send a few recruits at a time instead of running their own academy. He said a state fire academy is being planned in Exeter, with a first class scheduled for April.
Could that mean the Warwick department will do away with its own training academies?
“I want to see how it’s [a state academy] going. It could be a good option going forward,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin also observed that a proportion of the overtime, although he couldn’t say exactly how much, is attributable to specialized training that is paid for by federal and state grants. The chief said he is proud of the department’s marine task force, diving team and those trained to extricate people from confined areas and in situations where they may be subject to additional life-threatening conditions such as exposure to chemicals, electricity and gases.
The department has won grants to cover this training, but those funds are not reflected as an offset to the budget. Rather, the money flows into the general fund.
In response to criticism that because of their specialized training, Warwick firefighters are now being called on to cover unique situations across the state, McLaughlin said, “from our perspective life safety doesn’t have a boundary.”
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richardcorrente
In several conversations with Ed Armstrong (retired Fire Chief), present Chief Jim McLaughlin, and several others I have learned that the overtime issue is not as bad as it previously looked. When Warwick hired the new 24 recruits their training hours were not listed on the budget spreadsheet. I asked why and was told that rather than make a new column entitled "training hours" they just added it to the "overtime hours" column. That was dumb. It made the Firefighters look like they were abusing the system. I saw paychecks at the end of 2015 that reflected under $1,000 in year-to-date overtime.
As a taxpayer, I don't want ANY overtime dollars going out but fair is fair. We never had as much overtime cost as we thought we had. Perception became reality and now that the training period has lapsed I believe we will see overtime shrinking further.
What I believe Warwick should do now, is look into the purchase of a new rescue. The present rescues make more than they cost. I believe a new rescue would generate more revenue than the cost of the vehicle, making it a win-win for the Taxpayers as well as the City.
Happy Spring everyone.
Rick Corrente
The Taxpayers Mayor
Happy Spring everyone.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017 Report this
Thecaptain
Rick,
Not only are you a tax cheat but you are a bold face liar and completely inept when it comes to any conversation pertaining to the WFD budget. You saw paychecks? Your full of it. I, on the other hand have all of the base salaries and all of the year end ending salaries of all department members for the last 3 years, on a spread sheet that was obtained thru APRA which shows that EVERY MEMBER made huge overtime during the 3 year wage freeze period. By the way, that's in addition to several W2 forms of random employees. You are so wrong that I may have to start calling you Pinocchio, instead of the Non-Taxpayer Mayor.
Fact - As of the end of the second fiscal quarter the WFD has consumed $1,146,121.49 in overtime. They have consumed 99.1% of Fire 2 overtime and 53.7% of Fire 1 overtime. (I have the actual documents Rick, what do you have?)
Fact - In the first fiscal quarter of 2016-17 in 90 days there were 492 changes of shift, 680 sick days, and 1105 vacation days.
(I have the actual documents Rick, what do you have?)
Fact - At the budget hearing the chief testified that vacation is covered by straight time. However, 1105 of 1105 vacation days in the first fiscal quarter were all covered at the overtime rate. (I have the actual documents Rick, what do you have?)
Fact - At the budget hearings the chief testified and agreed that by contract, all "substitutions" "are approved in writing only" and he further stated that these documents are available thru the APRA process. I requested them and received notification from the city that no such documents existed. I then requested the "Change of Shift Form 109" along with all attendance records from the first fiscal quarter. As it turns out, zero out of 492 forms have been filled out. What does that mean? That means that any employee can change his shift for any reason without permission. (I have the actual documents Rick, what do you have?)
Fact - In the first fiscal quarter there were 2277 changes of originally scheduled manpower. (I have the actual documents Rick, what do you have?)
Fact - We discovered, due to my questioning of the chief that the WFD does not track sick time of uniformed firefighters and itemize it in a line on the balance sheet. They only track the civilian office workers on line item 35-100. (I have the actual documents Rick, what do you have?) If I was an employee in any other department I would be filing a lawsuit based on unfair labor practices. This deceptive accounting practice, which can be argued as a fraud scheme, is the key to hiding sick time so all sick time is protected to receive an unused sick pay bonus.
Fact - What this amounts to is this - every sick day that is incurred is charged off to the taxpayer under RIGL Title 45 -19 and that no fire fighter has a sick day or vacation day deducted from their allotment for any reason when sick or substituting. In other words, a man gets a hangover, instead of calling in sick, or taking a vacation day, he substitutes, protecting his sick days and vacation days. A man has a part time job, he substitutes and goes to work elsewhere, for example Green Hall URI. Records are not kept, the fraud continues, and every chief along the way has been a beneficiary of the scam.
Fact - When reviewing the over 500 documents that I have gotten so far, the attendance sheets show several interesting trends. For example, on the last day of a mans shift, he has a COS, then goes on vacation for 4 days, then has another COS at the back end. Same thing happens over and over. Its calculated to get more time off, and no COS from 109's are tracked. (I have the actual documents Rick, what do you have?)
So the lies that we have heard for over a decade that overtime will be eliminated is just more Bull. Also, we now have the chief, and you (laughable) bragging about the floaters reducing the overtime. Did either of you factor in the salaries and benefit packages into that equation to determine the net worth of the added manpower which now exceeds minimum manning? Did you factor in the sick day and vacation pay, uniform pay, cleaning allowances? Of course not, that takes actual math skills.
While we are speaking in fact, let me address some more fact that I discovered in the last few days. This has to do with the Non-Taxpayer Mayor and his delinquent car taxes.
Fact - Your 2009-10 car tax payments - ALL PAID LATE
Fact - Your 2010-11 car tax payments due July 15 2010 not paid until January 25 2012. 18 months late.
Fact - your 2011-12 car tax payments due July 15 2011 not paid until January 25 2012. 6 months late. (as you were not able to re-register the vehicle)
Fact - your 2012-13 car tax payments due July 15 2012 not paid until March 3 2013. 8 months late.
Fact - your 2016-17 car tax payments due July 15 2016 - No payments made as of this date. Late again. Habitually late.
Then there is the issue of the same time that you weren't paying your property taxes, mysteriously, your car, although still parked at 177 Grand View Ave, in Warwick, mysteriously came off the tax roles and no taxes at all were paid on it. Most likely because it was unregistered, yet still on the road . So between 2013 - 2016 to what city were you paying a car tax to for the same car that has been in use all this time? Another example of the Non-Taxpayer Mayor
Plenty more facts to come but I'm tired of typing and Geppetto is calling me on the other line.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017 Report this
allent
The thieves will not be underpaid. they WILL find another loophole to scam more money.it's in their DNA
Wednesday, February 8, 2017 Report this