EagleTribune.com, North Andover, MA

City grapples with overtime budgets, sick days

By Bill Kirk
bkirk@eagletribune.com

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LAWRENCE — As the city grapples with a massive deficit, city unions continue racking up huge overtime charges, including one recent holiday weekend that cost the taxpayers $27,000.

While much of the overtime is contractually obligated, some of it is being billed because employees who recently received layoff notices are calling in sick or taking vacation time before the end of the fiscal year when their positions may be terminated.

The high overtime costs and apparent spike in sick time are being used by city leaders to justify their call for union givebacks in light of a $4 million hole in next year's budget.

"We need $1.8 million in givebacks from the Police Department unions and $1.5 million from the firefighters union," said Leonard Degnan, Mayor William Lantigua's chief of staff. "So far, they've offered nothing."

City Council President Frank Moran said he heard some police, firefighters, and City Hall workers are calling in sick because they could lose their sick day benefits as soon as they are laid off June 30.

"If it is going on, it is very alarming," Moran said. "We've got to fix it, and fix it soon."

He added that the exorbitant use of overtime must also be curtailed.

"Overtime should be used for emergencies, not as an entitlement," Moran said.

Searching for savings

Degnan has been burrowing into union contracts looking for savings. What he has found are contracts filled with generous overtime benefits and various other perks handed out by previous administrations. Those perks are costing taxpayers millions of dollars, even as the city has announced layoffs of 190 employees.

One of the most egregious overtime or holiday pay issues, according to Degnan, is the $27,000 paid to firefighters who worked during Memorial Day weekend.

According to Fire Department payroll documents requested by state-appointed fiscal overseer Bob Nunes, during a 31-hour period over May 30-31, the city paid $27,605 in holiday pay to 48 Fire Department employees. One superior officer earned $791 for working 14 hours on May 30 — the Sunday before the holiday. Another earned $975 for working 17 hours on May 31.

Degnan said the city makes similar payments to firefighters for all of the other holidays throughout the year, and that is the only union afforded such a benefit.

"The previous administration (of Mayor Michael Sullivan) put this through without City Council approval," he said. "It never got scrutiny. I do not believe people knew the firefighters were getting paid holiday pay for working the day before a holiday."

Firefighters union President Pat Driscoll, however, said overtime is paid out on an as needed basis.

"Overtime is not contractual," he said. "Nowhere does it say we will be afforded overtime."

When asked about the holiday pay, however, Driscoll admitted that part is contractual.

According to the city budget as presented by Lantigua, unless something changes due to contract negotiations, regular overtime will cost taxpayers $1,087,699 next year. Holiday overtime will cost the city $529,271, and holiday pay $382,094. That represents nearly 20 percent of the Fire Department's $10.4 million budget.

Degnan and other city officials remain hopeful that through negotiations, the unions will agree to give up some of their salaries and benefits in order to save their co-workers' jobs.

But Personnel Director Frank Bonet is skeptical.

"Every union that doesn't want to give concessions would rather eat their young," he said. "The older officers don't want to give up their 3.5 percent raise. They don't want to give furloughs, while the younger guys are saying, 'You'd rather see us laid off.'"

Sick pay surges

While overtime remains high, it appears some employees who might be getting laid off are using up their sick and vacation time before their employment expires on June 30.

According to a report compiled by Bonet, Lawrence police officers called in with 649 hours of sick time from June 1-17, 2010, compared to 429 hours in that same period last year. That cost the city $17,003 in sick pay, compared to $9,742 last year.

City officials said more employees are likely to call in sick over the next two weeks as the end of the fiscal year draws closer.

Degnan explained that under most union contracts, employees with less than 10 years on the job do not get "accrual payments," as they are known, for unused sick days. That means the employee has to use them before their termination dates or lose the benefit.

Police Chief John Romero said he hasn't seen an uptick in sick days, but has noticed more police officers taking vacation time in recent weeks.

"Given that we are seeing 35 people out the door, they are using their days off before they are gone," he said. "They are taking those days they are contractually allowed to have."

He said he is using officers already on duty to fill those shifts rather than bringing people in on overtime.

But payroll reports requested by fiscal overseer Nunes show the Police Department is still regularly using overtime to fill shifts.

On Sunday, May 23, for example, 10 officers were brought in on four- to eight-hour minimum shifts at a total cost of about $2,300, mostly in the early morning hours. Several more were brought in that day to investigate specific incidents, including an armed robbery and a suicide.

Romero said his overtime budget was cut last year from $1.2 million to around $580,000 this year, and he is living within that budget.

Next year, if the planned 35 layoffs go through and further cuts in overtime are made, Romero said any of the extra duties police have been performing for the past several years will go undone.

That means no gang patrols, drug patrols, auto insurance fraud investigations or burglary apprehensions.

"There will be no specialized shifts," he said. "We will shut down everything except a small detectives division and patrol. When we are short on a shift, everyone will be on patrol."

Minimum manning fuels OT

At the Fire Department, union officials and the chief have said the layoffs will result in closed stations and dangerously low manpower to protect the city from fires and medical emergencies.

But Degnan and other city officials say the Fire Department needs to be more creative and flexible in the way it goes about managing the department.

"I can guarantee there is a way to cut firefighter overtime by at least 50 percent," Moran said. "The fire chief is a great firefighter, but at end of the day, you have to take off your firefighter hat and put on your manager's hat."

Acting fire Chief Brian Murphy, who remains a member of the firefighters union, did not return phone calls last week.

In the past, the chief has used minimum manning to justify high use of overtime in the budget. Minimum manning, however, is just a recommendation — made by firefighters — of how many men should be on a shift or a piece of equipment. It is not a contractual obligation.

One of the payroll logs of the Fire Department requested by Nunes shows that during the week of June 6-12, for example, 25 firefighters worked overtime shifts to fulfill minimum-manning recommendations. The cost was almost $10,000.

That week, the department paid out $12,588 in overtime. Aside from minimum manning, reasons given for the overtime were staff meetings with the chief, office work, attending a fireworks class, instructing a juvenile fire school class and being on-call as an arson investigator. Overtime was also paid for one building fire and three car fires.

Police, firefighters make themselves heard

By Jill Harmacinski jharmacinski@eagletribune.com

LAWRENCE — Firefighters brought state and national union members to a rally in front of a closed station house yesterday. Last night in City Hall police officers spoke out publicly for the first time about threatened layoffs and demotions.

They had different approaches, but the message was the same: A public safety "crisis" is looming if Mayor William Lantigua goes ahead with a plan to lay off 70 police officers and firefighters on June 30.

"It's a time where we need more policing, not less," Detective Alan Andrews, patrolmen's union president, told the City Council last night.

"A city with these difficulties should not be considering cutting public safety. ... It should be bolstering public safety," Andrews said.

Police said they want to dispel the perception they are unwilling to negotiate.

Capt. Scott McNamara asked Lantigua to "please intervene and lend your considerable experience to these negotiations before it's too late."

Lantigua has said some 70 police officers and firefighters will be laid off, and others demoted, if additional money isn't found or union concessions are not made to balance next year's $72 million municipal budget. Fiscal year 2011 starts July 1.

Earlier in the day, firefighters held a rally with state and national union representatives and dozens of comrades to protest 32 layoffs planned for that department. About 250 people, the majority wearing red fire department T-shirts, gathered outside Howard Street's Engine 6, the Prospect Hill firehouse shuttered last August due to budget cuts.

"We are in a crisis, a public safety crisis," said Robert McCarthy, president of the Professional Firefighters Association of Massachusetts. "The people of this city have a right to public safety."

Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, flew in from Washington, D.C., to attend the 4 p.m. rally. Firefighters said it was the first time, in recent memory, a national union official came to the city to advocate on their behalf.

"The firefighters here are all in ever increasing danger; danger because of continuing cutbacks," Schaitberger said.

Standing in front of Engine 6, he noted that "instead of having rigs ready to roll out that door, we gotta have a sign letting the community know the place is no longer in business."

"I know things are tough and everyone is being asked to do more with less," Schaitberger said. "But it's not safe. It's not doable. It's not reasonable."

Prior to the rally, McCarthy met with Lantigua and Bob Nunes, the city's state-appointed financial overseer. McCarthy described the meeting as "encouraging."

"We talked and we agreed to talk again soon," he said. In the meantime, McCarthy and other fire union officials will continue to press the state and local government for money to help the Lawrence Fire Department.

If the money isn't found and the layoffs go into effect, "there will be a tragedy," McCarthy said.

Lantigua agreed the meeting was "sincere."

"And as much as we both want to fix the problem, one ingredient neither of us has is money. ... We looked as deep as we could," Lantigua said. "I've been handed a situation that's difficult. Nobody is going to work for free. And we don't rejoice in having to lay off people."

During last night's City Council meeting, numerous police officers spoke during the public participation portion of the meeting.

Sgt. Joseph Beaulieu said in order to prevent layoffs, superior officers have been asked to give up 42 percent of their pay "for life." Concessions suggested by the city have included elimination of scheduled raises, longevity and vacation buyback, shift differential and more, he said.

"You need to ask yourself, would anyone in this room be able to afford a 42 percent pay cut?" Beaulieu asked. "I am pretty sure the answer is no."

Beaulieu, along with McNamara and other officers, asked Lantigua to personally intervene. They stressed that last year, the police unions were pacesetters with money-saving concessions by agreeing to unpaid furlough days to save jobs.

"We have demonstrated we can make concessions and we are prepared now to make concessions," Andrews said. But officers need information from city officials in order to do so, he said.

• Monday June 14, 2010 Attorney Paul Hynes discussing questions concerning Civil Service & layoffs 12:30pm Central Fire Station
• Tuesday June 15th 2010 Civil Service Rep will meet at the Central Fire Station for Laws/Rights 3pm.
• WEDNESDAY PRESS CONFERENCE WITH IAFF GENERAL PRESIDENT HAROLD SCHAITBERGER MEETING AT CENTRAL 4PM. TIME MAY CHANGE! RED SHIRTS