NH city delays bonds to cover firefighter overtime deficit

December 16, 2009 03:59 AM

By Maddie Hanna
The Concord Monitor

CONCORD, N.H. — The city will delay bonding for capital projects to help cover the $276,000 deficit the fire department anticipates this year in overtime costs.

The department, which began the fiscal year with $350,000 budgeted for overtime pay and related costs, found ways to trim $55,000 worth of supplies and training to offset the projected deficit. Faced with $221,000 left to cover, the city decided to delay selling bonds until early next year, freeing up money by pushing back the bond payment schedule, said City Manager Tom Aspell.

That decision doesn’t prevent the city from moving forward with projects, but it’s a “one-time fix,” Aspell said. “Next year, we have to have a different solution to this.”

The fire department relies on overtime for the flexibility it affords in filling short-term vacancies, said fire Chief Dan Andrus. And though the department cut its budget significantly in the last several years — as recently as 2006 it paid out more than $1 million in overtime — given the need to maintain minimum staffing levels, some degree of overtime will always be required to account for firefighters and paramedics out sick, Andrus said.

“Even though you’re paying time-and-a-half rates, it’s less expensive than hiring people,” he said.

Exactly how expensive is what Andrus and others are trying to determine. The city’s finance staff has been working with the fire department to examine when overtime hours are used and why. They’re analyzing staffing patterns, searching for ways to save money while avoiding big cuts to service.

But a year after the city dropped Engine 1, more cuts could be on the table come spring. In a report Andrus prepared for city councilors earlier this month addressing the overtime costs, he mentioned two possible cuts to emergency services. The first would be to staff an ambulance with only emergency medical technicians if not enough paramedics were on duty. The second would be to take an ambulance out of service.

Neither scenario is happening now, and what will happen next year is unclear. The department’s budgeting process begins in January, Andrus said, and “as the report indicated, we’re always looking ahead at the actions we take today and how that impacts budgets.”

He said he’s confident that with a year’s worth of better- monitored overtime data, “we can now go in with a much more solid idea of how much the department needs to support a certain service level.”

Though cutting an ambulance wasn’t required, “we want to make sure the council was aware of the alternatives,” Aspell said.

“In the future,” he said, “that’s something the council’s going to wrestle with.”

In light of last year’s cuts to the fire department, Councilor Fred Keach said he worried about making further reductions.

“Public safety poses a particular challenge, unlike other city departments,” he said, “where you can leave shifts unfilled without serious consequences. When it comes to fire and police, the stakes are a little higher.”

Keach said he would be interested in statistics showing how many serious medical calls come in and when. He wondered about ways to modify minimum staffing levels.

He said he thinks the upcoming budget will be tougher to prepare than the last. The city has already cut dozens of positions, he said, and lost one of its fire engines.

“We’re about down to the bone,” he said.