Senior Fire Officials Raking In Overtime
Montgomery Report Raises Safety Concerns

By Miranda S. Spivack and Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 24, 2008

Senior Montgomery County firefighters have worked so many extra hours that at least nine made almost $200,000 last year, a report by the county's inspector general said yesterday. The highest-paid firefighter was a captain who more than doubled his 2007 salary in overtime, making $238,892 and working nearly 2,000 extra hours.

The report said so much overtime could raise health and safety concerns for firefighters and opens the door to possible fraud and abuse. Overtime rose 47.5 percent from 2004 to 2007; this year, the fire and rescue service is on track to exceed its overtime budget for the fifth year.

Montgomery Inspector General Thomas Dagley, who has been studying the issue for two years, said in his report that the system "has become increasingly dependent on the use of overtime by senior level personnel . . . and created a workforce environment in which overtime remains vulnerable to abuse."

Officials across the region are grappling with rising overtime. In Fairfax County, for example, fire and rescue department overtime increased $1.2 million to $18.68 million in the past year. John J. Caussin Jr., an assistant fire chief for personnel in Fairfax, said that in tight budget times, fire departments still have to staff firetrucks and medic units, without adding personnel.

"You've got to do more with less," he said.

Montgomery officials said budget constraints over the past decade have forced firefighters to take on extra duties, such as teaching recruits. In some cases, they said, paying overtime can be less expensive than hiring firefighters because retirement costs are higher for public safety employees than other county workers, a claim that auditors questioned.

County officials pledged to eliminate unnecessary overtime.

"Can we do more work on that? Sure," said Timothy Firestine, the county's chief administrative officer, who formerly headed the Finance Department. "If the hour doesn't need to be worked, let's eliminate the hour. If the hour has to be worked, we have to find the most efficient, effective way of doing that."

Fire union representatives said overtime should not be cause for concern.

"We don't believe there's a problem. We understand that a couple people have snuck through the cracks, but we believe with what we've put into place, there won't be any issue at all," firefighter union chief John Sparks said.

Montgomery County Council member Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville), who chairs the panel's public safety committee, called the latest findings troubling. The panel plans to examine them next week.

"We don't want overtime to be used when it would be cheaper and more effective to have additional staffing," Andrews said. "And there is a safety question, an increase in occupational risk because people are tired and overworked. Overtime needs to be managed so employees don't burn out."

County Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large), who's on the public safety committee, said he found the report disturbing.

"I think there is no doubt that there is a problem," he said. "We are in fantasyland if we are not going to admit there is a problem. This can't be a way of people just supplementing their income, but it seems like that is what it has become."

With some firefighters working as many as 80 hours a week, some employees are worried about on-the-job safety, the inspector general's report said. That concern was also voiced by Fire and Rescue Service Director Thomas W. Carr Jr. A regular workweek is 40 to 48 hours, depending on the job.

Carr said much of the overtime can be traced to decisions made by county leaders in the 1990s during a budget crunch, which forced the agency to increase the workload for firefighters and reduce hiring.

Much of the overtime noted in the report went to senior staff members, mostly captains, who are in charge of firehouses and fire scenes and are covered by a labor contract. None was named in the report. Several made almost as much as Carr, whose annual salary is just over $200,000.

The agency has about 1,330 employees and an annual budget of about $200 million. County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) recommended hiring 30 firefighters and charging a fee for ambulance services in his budget proposal for the coming year.

This fiscal year, the report noted, the fire and rescue staff had used up almost all the $11.6 million budgeted for overtime within nine months. An additional $3 million was trimmed by the County Council from the overtime budget last year after the inspector general raised questions about a lack of documentation. Firestine said that had the money stayed in the budget, firefighters probably would not have exceeded budgeted overtime.

Before 2002, overtime for firefighters was generally limited to 50 percent of salary. The limit was dropped in the process of reorganizing the county's fire services in 2003, according to union officials.

As part of a new labor contract recently negotiated by the Leggett administration, overtime for fire and rescue employees is capped at 100 percent of salary. The contract, which awaits scrutiny by the County Council, makes some exceptions to allow more overtime pay.

Sparks said the contract, which will give the majority of firefighters raises of 28 percent over three years, includes a new system for overtime that should help balance the workload.

Carr said his agency has been scrutinizing the overtime system since last year, when the inspector general questioned $1.1 million in overtime payments to 25 employees. That report found inadequate paperwork in many cases and no paperwork for more than $175,000 in overtime payments for battalion chiefs.

The inspector general's report credited the fire and rescue service for "substantially addressing" problems discovered last year and improving overtime tracking.

"By the end of this year, we will have a good idea of what it really costs to run the department," Carr said. "It's not a happy thing to have to say you don't know. We are tearing it apart and putting it back together."