Council Approves Additional Fire Overtime

City council approved Monday allocating $150,000 from the city's rainy day fund to help cover fire department overtime.

Council learned that the fire department had about $30,000 remaining from the $300,000 that was originally budgeted and later augmented twice.

"I think for tonight that we need to allocate the funds out of the rainy day fund," said Mayor Robert Hison, who added council will be conducting additional research into the issue in the coming month. "We need to actually take care of our citizens."

Council voted 4-2 to allocate the funds to cover overtime for the fire department. During discussion prior to the vote, council was also presented with the option of reducing staffing from 13 to 11 fire fighters.

City council has been dealing with the issue of fire department overtime throughout the year. Twice council has increased the budget from the initial budgeted overtime amount of $43,913.

While council approved the additional overtime funds, steps have also been taken to change how the department is run.

The union and the city agreed to now run three ambulances, one out of each of the city's fire stations, instead of having two ambulances responding to calls from the central fire station.

During the first month of the expanded service, the third ambulance responded to 26 service calls and an additional $8,800 in revenue.

Additionally, negotiations between the city and St. Clair Shores Fire Fighters Union Local 1744 started in December on the three-year contract that is scheduled to expire on June 30. City officials stated the negotiations normally do not start until January or February.

Council has also supported the administration's effort to go after federal grants to help pay the salaries of some firefighters.

Overtime costs have been reduced from $743,000 in 2005 to $494,531 last year through a number of measures.

If the department uses its an entire budget, nearly $407,000 in overtime will have been added to the budget and spent, according to councilman Kip Walby.

He said the city is spending "like it is 2000."

"I am still looking at documents that say we are going to be bankrupt in 2014," said Walby, of the spending that needs to be addressed. "It can't go on forever."