Zak Stone Photo
As the city’s police and fire chiefs presented budgets to the Board of Aldermen, they again came under fire for spending too much on overtime costs.
The two chiefs responded that they have made all the cuts they can. They said they will focus on ramping up strategies for income generation, including increased ticketing and charging for emergency health care services, to fund their budgets.
The discussion took place at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Board of Alderman’s Finance Committee in City Hall, as the first wave of city department leaders partook in the annual tradition of defending their budgets before the aldermanic committee.
The debate between Hill Alderman Jorge Perez, Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts, new Police Chief Frank Limon, and Fire Chief Michael Grant invited déjà vu from last year’s meeting, when Smuts and Perez sparred about the perennial issue of police overtime.
“I have a hard time understanding $2.3 million in overtime charges,” Perez told Smuts. The Fire and Police Departments are projected to bill $501189 and $1,832,725 in overtime, respectively, for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Police and Fire make up the two most expensive city departments, in that order (excluding the Board of Ed, which is not considered a city department).
Perez pointed out that most positions on both forces have been filled, which ought to reduce the need for overtime work.
Members of the committee expressed concern with the finances of the Fire Department in particular. It is projected to rack up $41,002 worth of deficit this year. Fire Department costs have come under scrutiny by aldermen in recent years as a solution for closing the city’s budget gaps.
Smuts said that perfecting “how the department should respond to medical issues is going to be critical” for solving this year’s financial woes. Training more firemen as paramedics could earn the department more revenue by charging for first response care.
“All our firefighters are trained at the EMT level,” which enables them to provide basic care, Chief Grant told the committee. Fewer are trained as paramedics.
“Why can’t all the firefighters become paramedics?” asked Downtown Alderwoman Bitsie Clark. She suggested that they would need less workers on the force if more of them had medical expertise.
“Ultimately that would be the ideal thing to do,” replied Chief Grant.
Smuts confirmed that the department is working toward this goal, which will “save more lives and provide more revenue.” But it will take time and money to train the firefighters.
Overall, Fire Department deficits have declined over the past few years, from as high as $885,931 in 2007, Smuts pointed out.
Policing the Budget
Redding and Limon
Chief Limon, who’s been on the job for eight days, said that cutting overtime costs are part of his department’s new plans. He already put a memo out mandating that all overtime requests be approved by an assistant chief.
The Police Department’s budget represents a decrease of $1.3 million, or 3.4 percent, from last year’s total, but Smuts and Limon intend to get more for less.
Plans for next year including adding a new class of officers, a capital replacement plan set to include 12 new vehicles and $300,000 worth of weapon, ammo, and body armor, and working towards a more integrated, efficient force. “A lot of the systems are not connected together,” said Limon.
The Department will try to fund some of these expenditures partly through more aggressive ticketing. Smuts said that officers have been patrolling late-night hotspots, like the Dwight pizza mecca at the corner of Howe and Elm, in search of noise violations. The city net more than $20 per ticket, he said.
Increased ticketing will also help “establish more order,” especially in the Dwight area where recent shootings were partially “attributed to double parking” and other quality of life violations, said Smuts.
Smuts said that despite recent killings, “overall crime still continues a downward trend” of 10 percent from last year.
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