By Ed Housewright
The Dallas Morning News
MCKINNEY, Texas — The city of McKinney has overpaid its firefighters $3.5 million over the past six years because of a computer error, and some will see smaller paychecks starting next month.
Deputy City Manager Jim Parrish said officials have met with members of the McKinney Fire Department, Firefighters Association and City Council to explain the situation, revealed by a recent outside audit.
“We were straight up with them,” Parrish said. “When we make mistakes, we address them and make the necessary changes.”
About 140 firefighters of different ranks will see their combined salary, paid time off and benefits reduced by an average of $4,392 a year, Parrish said. The employees, ranging from starting firefighters to battalion chiefs, earn between $47,187 and $100,732 annually, records show.
“Obviously, it’s a tough pill to swallow in difficult times,” said Steve Dorris, president of the McKinney Firefighters Association. “I don’t have anybody who wants to quit or anything like that. We’re committed to working through this.”
A computer program miscalculated the number of hours firefighters had worked during their 21-day pay periods, Parrish said. Determining the exact number of hours worked by firefighters is difficult because they don’t work the regular hours of other city employees, he said.
Instead, they typically work 24-hour shifts, followed by 48 hours off.
Parrish and interim City Manager Rick Chaffin met with members of the firefighters association last month to talk about the overpayment and resulting cut in compensation.
“I told them to expect a pretty rough crowd,” Dorris said. “But by and large it was a very good meeting. Everyone knows it’s coming. I’m sure when the guys starting getting paychecks with reduced pay, I may get a few more calls from the guys.”
A Euless-based human resources consultant said employees tolerate pay cuts better if managers are honest and explain the reasoning.
“As you can imagine, cuts usually affect employee morale,” said Christina Stovall of Odyssey OneSource, which handles human resources functions for 350 companies. “But as long as you tell them exactly what happened and what your intent is to fix the situation so it doesn’t happen again, they’re usually a little more forgiving.”
McKinney City Council member Ray Ricchi said he was angry to learn that overpayments to firefighters had been occurring since 2005 and totaled about $3.5 million.
“That’s quite a large sum of money,” he said.
Mayor Brian Loughmiller said he was pleased by the response of firefighters to the upcoming reduction in pay, time off and benefits.
“We knew there was a potential for some people to be upset about the correction that had to be made,” he said.
Copyright 2011 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS