Municipal overtime reached nearly $1M last year

LACONIA — The city gave its employees nearly $1 million in overtime pay last year, with the lion’s share going to firefighters and police officers, according to an annual report released Monday.

Straight-time wages to city employees totaled almost $11 million.

City Councilor Bruce Cheney said a certain amount of overtime is expected, but these expenses in Laconia appear to be somewhat high.

“Overtime was one of the driving factors in last year’s discussion of privatizing the ambulance service,” he said. “It became a moot point, but it was one of the factors discussed as having potential for a significant savings.”

Last year, the city explored an offer by Brewster Ambulance to take over the ambulance service from the fire department, but the company abandoned the bid amid firefighter opposition.

Firefighter tops $100K

The report showed one firefighter earned $30,178 in overtime, eight others earned at least $20,000 in overtime and nine others received more than $15,000 in overtime.

One captain was the top-paid firefighter last year, earning $108,546 including wages and overtime, while a dozen other firefighters earned at least $80,000.

Meanwhile, individual police officers do not accumulate as much overtime as their colleagues in the fire service.

The most overtime paid out in the police department last year was $12,418, which went to a patrolman.

Expenses increase

The cost of overtime for all city employees has grown by 9 percent since 2015.

Municipal workers typically receive small cost-of-living pay increases every year.

Cheney, a former police chief, noted that a certain amount of overtime comes with the territory for first responders.

“With police and fire, when something is left to be done, ‘You can’t say, ‘It’s 4 p.m., I’m going home," he said. "If you’re at a traffic accident in the middle of a blizzard at 10 minutes to midnight, you can’t go ahead and go home.

“The question becomes what can we do to make sure there is no more overtime than is absolutely needed."

Reasons for OT

Fire chief Kirk Beattie did not immediately return a call for comment Monday.

Former Fire Chief Ken Erickson has said that when medical insurance and other compensation costs are considered, new firefighter positions do not pay for themselves in reduced overtime expense.

The fire department has policies requiring a certain number of firefighters to be on duty at all times, so when a firefighter calls in sick or is otherwise absent, supervisors often call in another firefighter to work on an overtime basis.

Council questions  

City Councilor Andrew Hosmer said the overtime expense raises questions in his mind.

"It leads me to wonder if we are at staff levels that we need to be at in order to reduce the overtime," he said. "Is it an isolated data point, or a trend that will lead us to believe we are not staffed in the way we should be?

“Our obligation as city councilors is to ensure that money is spent wisely and we’re getting a return on salaries and people. We should always be asking a lot of questions to always look to improve.”