Comments on: Rainy day fund dried up in 2009

By: thisjustin

thisjustin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:36:55 +0000

The time is right to continue the planning for merging city and county departments. This has been very successful in many other areas of the country.

By: Kevin Milliken

Kevin Milliken — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:43:48 +0000

Don’t forget– we’re not talking about the typical eight hours of OT here. FF’s work on a 24-hour on, 48-hour off basis. So if a FF’s on OT, that cost is for 24 hours to meet that minimum manning requirement. It adds up quickly.

That is why during the campaign, I recommended the management agreement between Toledo parks & rec and the Metroparks to save on park maintenance, which the savings could be used to hire the new fire class, and actually cut the budget by a few million dollars long-term.

I had warned then that despite 2009’s $27 million dollar deficit, if we didn’t take a long-term view on the budget, we’d be right back in the same situation again and again– and here we are already.

By: grrreenrax

grrreenrax — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:20:00 +0000

When you consider vacation time, and potential sick leave usage, the real increase in numbers is closer to 37-38 because two or three will be used to cover vacation time and sick leave. The ratio could even be like 36:4 (actual manpower increase/reliefs for vacation and sick leave).

By: John Meyer

John Meyer — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:32:18 +0000

There is generally a point where overtime becomes more expensive than hiring a new person because of the time and half and it tends to be close to where overtime hours = regular work hours.

Now if they were paying like a day’s worth of overtime, probably not worth it, but this seems like many days worth of overtime a pay period.

By: LisaRenee

LisaRenee — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:13:34 +0000

It’s not just Collins, it’s been discussed in Council meetings more than once, and they tried earlier this year to pass a resolution to hire more firefighters, one example of the media at the time:

The idea is to cut back on fire department overtime costs. In 2007, Toledo fire’s overtime hit $1.8 million. In 2008, overtime jumped to $3.8 million. This year’s estimates are as high as $4.2 million.

The 11 firefighters who would be hired have firefighting experience. They would only need three weeks of training, as opposed to the usual months-long process in August.

“If we hire them in August, they would basically cost northing because, in 2009, the reduction in overtime cost would pay their salaries,” said City Council President Joe McNamara. “But in 2010, we’d save approximately $1 million.”

By: grrreenrax

grrreenrax — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:28:07 +0000

I was looking at the Blade article about Mike Collins belief that hiring additional firemen would cut costs, “If he would have hired those 40 people in December of last year, fire overtime would have been less than a million,” he said. “The cost of salaries for them would have been about $2.1 million and overtime would have been less than $1 million, so there still would have been a savings of about $1.5 million.”

I have to wonder if Collins is being disingenuous since he talks about the firemen’s salaries, but makes no mention of the costs of their benefits. Such a “public servant” makes me nervous.

By: LisaRenee

LisaRenee — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:16:18 +0000

We can’t cut the fire department though, which is what creates the overtime number and the belief that money would be saved with more firemen. There is a minimum manning requirement as a part of their union contract so the only way to change that would be to reopen the contract and negotiate that change, which has not been successful in the past.

By: grrreenrax

grrreenrax — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:14:41 +0000

This is not to say that I am against hiring additional firemen (especially if our forces are getting burned out), but I doubt it will save us money in the long run. I have to wonder how such an increase measures against Sarantou’s suggestion that we cut the fire department 5-10% to get us through this crisis. Maybe we could just declare certain areas of town non-habitable, and let them burn down.

By: grrreenrax

grrreenrax — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:05:29 +0000

I can’t understand how the city would save money by hiring more firefighters. One of the reasons any company uses overtime is because it saves money. Rather than hire additional employees (and paying them benefits) you use the employees you already have to the max. When you hire additional employees you have to allow vacation time, sick leave, paid health insurance, and eventually retirement. Hiring additional firefighters will not save the city money, but actually cost us much more after the first year or two (or perhaps even in the first year if benefits for additional firemen outweigh the cost of overtime to the employees we now have).