A D.C. Council member urged that Fire Chief Dennis Rubin be legally “sanctioned” for his agency’s runaway budget, saying Rubin has turned a blind eye to overtime “abuse or misuse” and mismanaged the city’s rescue service.
Councilman Phil Mendelson, D-at large, said that the fire department’s budget is out of control and is breaking federal spending laws. In a letter written last week, he urged the finance office to “act aggressively” and “instill financial discipline.”
“In short, the chief of the fire and EMS department has made decisions that violate anti-deficiency, has failed to manage overtime and allowed its abuse or misuse and has chosen not to adopt strategies that would reduce costs,” Mendelson said in a letter to Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi. “If an agency director cannot be sanctioned in a case like this, then the law is toothless.”
Rubin’s spokesman, Pete Piringer, said in an e-mail “it would be inappropriate for me to respond at this time.” He said he wasn’t sure the chief was aware of Mendelson’s allegations.
In his letter, Mendelson accused Rubin of either ignoring or instigating overtime “abuse or misuse,” from granting hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime to salaried employees, allowing employees to rack up overtime in weeks when they also took sick leave and carelessly allowed the February blizzard to become “an orgy of opportunity” for overtime.
» $340,000 in overtime payments to salaried managers
» 109 employees allowed to become top 25 users of both overtime and sick leave
» $1.1 million in overtime during February snowstorms, including “unnecessary and excessive” payments to administrative aides during the storm
Mendelson said that the chief has broken the Anti-Deficiency Act, which requires publicly funded agencies to stay within their budgets and sets tight restrictions on how the money can be spent. The law allows for administrative punishments, including the suspension of violators.
Rubin has claimed in a series of testy exchanges with Mendelson that the fire department is scrambling to keep enough firefighters and paramedics on duty and that overtime is a vital component of public safety.
With several months to go in the fiscal year, the fire department is already over its budget. Finance officials have warned that the agency will go more than $11 million beyond its budget, nearly $7 million of that from overtime.
Mendelson chairs the council’s public safety committee.
