Overtime, Mardi Gras, Special Events, Firefighters, Police, and Public works

Every year around February here in Mobile Alabama our city allows the celebration of Mardi Gras to engulf the downtown area of the city streets. Every year when this celebration of Mardi Gras takes place the city of Mobile provides police protection, medical services and public works services by the city of Mobile employees. The medical service provided is by the city of Mobile Fire Rescue firefighters, EMT’s and paramedics.

The Mobile Fire Department call employees that work Mardi Gras and other city events special event teams. Some of these employees that work these events may be working and getting paid regular time and others that volunteer for these events to work on their days off get paid overtime. The police who work these events also get paid the same way.

Click on the link below to view a Mardi Gras parade 2-15-2010

http:/www.associatedcontent.com/video/657063/mardi_gras_in_mobile_alabama_not_new.html

The issue of overtime and how the city of Mobile manages overtime is a major issue in Mobile. What the city will allow or don’t allow or when overtime is to be worked has also been an issue.

The city seems to always be looking for ways to cut the budget. When the issue of what areas to cut is brought up it seems like the city focuses on the city employees that serve the city.

The link below tells how Fred Richardson spent tax payers money.http:/www.wkrg.com/alabama/article/richardson_its_my_money_too/21750/Dec-09-2008_10-36-pm

The city voted to change the overtime policy last year and over five hundred employees showed up for this meeting to voice their opinion, concerns and disagreements on the change of the overtime policy. Everyone that attended the meeting could not speak because of time but the show of force should have been enough to change the council and Mayors decision on changing the overtime policy. The decision was made and the overtime policy was changed that will effect thousands of workers income that workers needed to help with monthly living expenses.

Here is the deal: If you are off work on a scheduled off day and come to work the following day and you work overtime, you get paid straight time pay not overtime pay. Many city employees have suffered some loss of income because of the city leaders voting on the change of the overtime policy.

The information below is a look at what the city have voted to pay themselves.
Credit for the information below comes from this website located at the link below.

http://www.cityofmobile.org/election/salary.php

Salary Information

Members of the Mobile City Council receive $19,800 in annual salary, plus $175 for each regular and special meeting, as well as a flat expense account of $325 a month. A council member who attends all meetings will make about $32,800 annually.
The mayor’s salary is $89,000 per year.

The above salary is not bad for a city council position that is just a part time job that you only have to show up for work but once a month for maybe a two hour meeting. The website fails to mention anything about how many special meetings they may have during the year. It also looks like the following website http://www.cityofmobile.org/election/salary.php doesn’t have the latest information for the council members salary or the Mayors salary for 2010. The city needs to cut back on some of the special projects and spend a little money to update this website because the last pdf file recorded is 2007.

In the website below the Mobile firefighters did this same thing these firefighters did. http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2010/01/muskegon_firefighters_give_up.html

Every year during Mardi Gras the fire department also provides a fire truck to bring up the end of every Mardi Gras parade. On the 15th of February 2010 the city allowed at least two first line pumpers to be off duty for a parade on Martin Luther King Jr Avenue for 4 hours to be in the parade.

February 16th 2010 was Mardi Gras Day here in Mobile Alabama and the Mardi Gras floats kept the streets of down town Mobile busy from 10:00 am till 7:00 pm and with every parade that paraded the streets of Mobile the city of Mobile provided police, medical service, public works and a fire truck for every parade.

Mardi Gras and it’s floats keep the down town streets busy for about a week and during this time of mayhem called Mardi Gars the city of pays employees overtime to work and approves of overtime but after this week of partying is over the city will try to cut back on working employees overtime.

We as citizens of Mobile need to support our police, firefighters, EMT'S, paramedics, 911 operators, public works, and other city employees that serve our city well.

If the city wants to cut back on overtime my suggestion is to not provide permits to any of the organizations’ that want to parade the streets of Mobile for this time of year the city celebrates Mardi Gras and just do away with Mardi Gras altogether. It’s my belief that Mardi Gras promotes recklessness, and a sinful atmosphere.

Click on the two links below to see youtube videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ytEb9CjuhM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYvspfHREIw

Click on some of the links below to see other cities with this same issue of overtime pay.

http://neworleanscitybusiness.com/citybusiness-blog/2009/01/14/firefighters-overtime-pay-could-go-up-in-smoke/

http://www.thisweeknews.com/live/content/grovecity/stories/2010/01/13/0114grfirefighters-money_ln.html

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_12175241

http://www.starbeacon.com/local/local_story_043091628.html

http://newsok.com/burning-through-money

http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2003_n_before/firepay.htm

http://www.buffalonews.com/496/story/608081.html

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=11980484