But new rules will soon force OT cuts
The agency’s spending beyond its limits on overtime has been an issue for many years. Last spring, the D.C. Council stepped in and passed regulations meant to limit fire and EMS overtime spending in fiscal year 2011, which starts Oct. 1.
On Thursday, fire officials are scheduled to go in front of at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson’s public safety committee to answer questions on their plans for meeting the new overtime-limiting regulations. “We’re going to ask for a road map from them to which we can hold them accountable in the coming months,” Mendelson told The Examiner.
But Mendelson won’t likely get the answers he’s looking for.
“We’re still reviewing [the new regulations] closely to see what impact there’s going to be,” Assistant Chief Al Jeffery told The Examiner. “We have no conclusions on those yet.”
Starting next week, no one in the department will be able to receive $20,000 or more in overtime within a fiscal year, and anyone with the rank of battalion chief or above will no longer receive overtime pay. That will be a big change from a system that allowed some members to take home nearly $100,000 a year in overtime payments.
The department has made some changes already, helping keep the overtime overspending down to $4 million from the $7.2 million it overspent in 2009 and the nearly $9 million overspent on overtime in 2008. Up until this past year, fire and EMS officials kept track of overtime by hand. Now, they’ve employed a computerized system that spreads the overtime out among members.
Mendelson said that despite the new regulations, there’s still room for the department to overspend.
If it does so, Mendelson said, “we’ll be happy to look at additional limitations as we go through the year.”
