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Fire fighting staff sees boom in overtime, additional fees
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Related Topics: Prince George’s County
Prince George’s County (Map, News) - A decrease in the hours volunteers can devote to putting out fires in Prince George's County has caused overtime and other costs for the county's professional fire fighting staff to balloon, officials said.
Rising fuel costs also contributed to the county's fire department request from the county council for an extra $7 million added to its $116.7 million budget in the coming fiscal year, Mark Brady, the department's spokesman, told The Examiner.
The department is already $200,000 above its budgeted overtime for the year, and may add another $150,000 before the end of June when the fiscal year closes, pushing the total overtime to roughly $6.15 million, according to budget documents.
Longer hours at work, coupled with the modern, hectic schedules of child rearing has made it more difficult for the county's 1,300 volunteers to find time for fighting fires and responding to medical emergencies, Jennifer Chafin, volunteer recruiter for the volunteer fire and rescue association, said.
"People want to be able to help, but they don't have the time to volunteer," Chafin said.
For several years the county has averaged 500 volunteer recruits each year, but those recruits increasingly drop out of the lengthy training process, many quitting even before their background checks are complete, Chafin said.
Police officials also have told council members the backlog of checks in the county's administrative offices slows the process and causes some recruits to lose interest.
As the number of active volunteer firefighters has dropped, the county has added more professionals, Brady said. For example, volunteers at the Allentown Road Station used to supplement a 4-member professional crew that operated Monday-Friday from 7 a.m.- 3 p.m. Now there are four professional firefighters at the station around the clock, seven days a week.
The department is requesting an additional 25 firefighters for the coming fiscal year. County Executive Jack Johnson, in an effort to close a $110 budget gap, has frozen hiring for all county departments except those in public safety, including the fire department.
Comments from Examiner Readers
2:42 PM MST on Fri., Jul. 25, 2008 re: "City seeks to douse overtime"
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12:13 PM MST on Thu., Jul. 24, 2008
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11:50 AM MST on Thu., Jul. 24, 2008
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11:37 AM MST on Thu., Jul. 24, 2008
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4:26 PM MST on Wed., Apr. 16, 2008
re: "Pacifica residents threaten to slash funds for fire services"
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SF Resident said:
The article didn't explain why not a single manager in the bloated Fire Department bureaucracy was aware that a firefighter had been "working" 24 hours a day for 19 days, and why a retired firefighter had to notify Chief Hayes-White.
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On the Q.T. said:
Examiner Reader said: "Excessive overtime for whatever reason(s) is not exclusive to firefighters." That's true. But working 452 hours straight while earning almost $25,000 must be a national record for a city employee.
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Examiner Reader said:
This is insane. There is absolutely no reason for overtime in a city that rarely even HAS a fire! Instead of overtime which is a suck on city budgets, hire more people at a living wage,not $53 an hour! In a city with more city employees per capita than ANY OTHER CITY IN THE US, this is outrageous. STOP IT NOW. If you work more than 40 hours in a week you do it on your own. That will stop that now. Oh and while you are at it, taking a drugged out drunk to the ER does NOT constitute and emergency and doesnt require lights and a siren. It certainly doenst require overtime.
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Examiner Reader said:
Excessive overtime for whatever reason(s) is not exclusive to firefighters. Pick your city agency and you'll likely find something similar going on. Its called reform and the City/Cnty of San Francisco needs it.
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READER said:
Pacifica, get a clue. You have more serious problems than this. You have a gang-banger kingpin living over by the Police station. Perhaps, you should be looking for that guy instead of arguing about this.
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