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WILKES-BARRE — Halfway through the year the city has already exceeded its budgeted overtime for firefighters and surpassed the total for 2018.
The city’s draft financial report for June listed firefighting overtime at $239,189 or more than one-and-a-half times the budgeted $150,000 for 2019. For all of last year the city paid $224,750 in overtime.
There is relief in sight with expected hiring of seven firefighters on Aug. 5, but that still leaves unfilled spots in the department. Mayor Tony George’s 2019 budget includes 63 firefighters, but the department has been working with 53.
City Administrator Rick Gazenski on Friday acknowledged the overtime was well over budget. The mayor held off on hiring in anticipation of an arbitrator’s decision, but it has yet to come.
The new hires should help slow down the pace of the overtime, but not immediately because most of them will have to undergo training, Gazenski said.
“We have a few that might go on staff,” Gazenski said.
Jeremy Cook, vice president of Local 104 of the International Association of Fire Fighters representing the department, counted 17 vacancies from retirements and a relocation between last year and this year.
As a result, firefighters have been working anywhere between two to four hours of overtime every two weeks, Cook said.
“That wears you down,” he added.
Cook welcomed the additions to the staff, but said taking into consideration the weeks of training some of them will undergo it’s “too late for that to alleviate the overtime.”
The department has used the overtime to meet the minimum staffing level of 11 firefighters per shift.
The firefighters are committed to providing essential emergency services, Cook said. “We’ll do what we have to do,” he said.
The firefighters’ overtime is just one line item in the city’s $50.4 million general fund budget.
The draft report for June showed the city with a balance of $8.4 million at the end of six months. Revenues totalled $28 million, compared to $19.6 million in expenses as of June 30.