Montgomery‘s top elected official asked department leaders to justify why the county spends more than $40 million a year on overtime costs, as he showed off a new Montgomery program designed to increase government spending accountability.
“We have a situation where overtime hours are growing 20 percent but hours worked are growing only 10 percent during the same time period,” County Executive Ike Leggett said. “We have to be able to explain to the council and the public what’s happening.”
The county’s fire and rescue department alone spent more than $15 million on overtime costs between July 2006 and July 2007. Nine senior firefighters worked enough overtime last year to make almost $200,000.
Fire Chief Tom Carr told Leggett and county finance leaders that the overtime costs for senior firefighters were necessary because the department is required to have people with specific skill sets on duty at all times, which often mandates extra hours for senior staff.
“We have had a hard time filling specialized positions like captains,” Carr said. “To be honest, it is pretty much the same cost to hire a new person for some of these positions as it is to pay overtime.”
County leaders, however, expressed concern that excessive overtime hours may result in increased sick leave, higher turnover rates and burnt out employees working in front-line public safety positions.
Leggett analyzed overtime issues during a public unveiling Friday of the “CountyStat” program, a new database system modeled after a similar project first used in Baltimore City when now-Gov. Martin O’Malley was mayor.
County leaders say they plan to use the program to display data and run analyses on everything from overtime and sick leave spending, to emergency response time and pedestrian safety issues. Department directors will be called on to explain spending and answer questions from county finance leaders about how money was spent and what results came from expenditures.
Carr said he thought the program would be beneficial.
“It’s good to have a frank discussion with external eyes looking at your department’s data,” Carr said.
O’Malley attended Friday’s briefing and praised Leggett’s efforts.
“I want to tell you how much I appreciate your courage,” O’Malley said to Leggett. “It is not always politically safe to tell everybody how you’re doing, what you’re doing, where you’re doing well and where you’re not.”
