Mayor Matt Harter has authorized additional overtime pay for the La Crosse Fire Department through the end of the year.
The mayor Monday approved allowing the department to shift $10,000 from money saved on staff vacancies to cover the overtime costs.
Chief Gregg Cleveland said he's confident that will be enough to carry the department through 2012.
He and the mayor had a standoff Friday on overtime, with the chief warning he would have to take at least one rig out of service for the weekend unless Harter approved more money.
Harter consented later that day to overtime through Labor Day weekend but said the chief had failed to file a request form as instructed to get full authorization.
The chief submitted that form for his approval Monday, Harter said.
Already shorthanded entering the year and with several new vacancies due to retirements, the department had nearly exhausted its $190,000 overtime budget for 2012, Cleveland said.
But one new firefighter started Tuesday, another two will come on in early September and two more later this fall, which should bring the department back to a full staff of 94 by year's end, the chief said.
That should, in turn, reduce the need for overtime, Cleveland said. He still expects the department to come in under budget overall for 2012, as it did for 2011.
"That would be a good thing," Harter responded.
The mayor and fire department repeatedly have clashed over staffing levels, with Harter in late May 2011 banning further overtime without his permission after learning the department had used $160,000, or almost 80 percent of its budget for the year.
Cleveland, who blamed the overtime on being short-staffed due to the mayor's hiring freeze, sent firefighters home before a compromise was reached a week later.
Copyright 2012 - La Crosse Tribune, Wis.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
