Sept. 24--Scranton's police and firefighter overtime plunged in 2016, mainly because of renegotiated labor contracts.
City employees earned $1.17 million in total overtime last year, most by police and firefighters. Though more than the $1.12 million budgeted for overtime last year, the amount incurred is a 31 percent decrease from the $1.7 million citywide total overtime in 2015.
"This is what we hoped for, and we hope it continues," Mayor Bill Courtright said.
The mayor, police and fire officials attributed the decline largely to the renegotiated labor contracts that restructured operations and staffing in those departments and reduced sick days, which is a big driver of overtime.
"The contractual changes certainly are affecting overtime. That's unquestionable. There's real savings there," Police Chief Carl Graziano said. "We reduced manning (in the Police Department) and made operational changes. That's indisputable. If the 2014 contract was in place today, our overtime would be significantly higher."
Total wages, including regular wages and overtime, increased 4 percent, or $1.17 million, from $30.37 million in 2015 to $31.54 million in 2016.
The Fire Department's lower overtime also was partly attributed to the addition of 15 firefighters to the ranks last year, funded by a two-year federal grant, called SAFER. Along with lower overtime expected under the new contracts, a main goal of bolstering the ranks with the grant was to reduce overtime, said Deputy Fire Chief Al Lucas.
"Numbers don't lie," Lucas said. "All the incentives we put together are working."
No new police or DPW positions were added last year.
Prior spikes in firefighter overtime were partly due to vacancies that Courtright did not fill in 2014 and through much of 2015, in a bid to save money on salaries and health care benefits. He instead used overtime to fill gaps until contracts could be renegotiated and until the federal SAFER grant could be obtained to fund a raft of firefighter hires.
SAFER covers two years' worth of the salaries of 14 new hires brought on board in January 2016. Those hires followed Courtright's hiring in September 2015 of five firefighters to replace retirees.
The hirings in the Fire Department came after the new contract was in place, to produce savings, Lucas said.
Under the renegotiated firefighter contract, new hires come in at lower pay than exiting retirees and take longer to get to full scale. Sick days do not count as hours worked for purposes of earning overtime in a given week. The plan calls for keeping SAFER hires after the grant expires next year. Replacing higher-paid retirees with new hires earning less and taking longer to get to full scale would allow for absorbing SAFER hires without having staffing costs balloon, Lucas said.
Still, overtime remains a wild card, subject to various factors.
For example, in 2015, overtime from the Sandone Tire warehouse fire and its aftermath hit $50,000.
Last year, the Fire Department chose to incur overtime as a means to keep the Truck Company 4 station at 1047 N. Main Ave. open more often, Lucas said. That station previously had been closed about 80 percent of the time, he said. Last year, the department -- through deployment of new hires and use of overtime -- kept the Truck Company 4 station open 80 percent of the time, and 90 percent of the time so far this year, Lucas said. The station primarily covers West Side, North Scranton, Tripp Park, the Plot Section and parts of Central City and Keyser Valley.
"We made the conscious decision to open that truck company for greater fire protection," Lucas said.
Police Department overtime last year was down for a second consecutive year, from a record high of $1 million in 2014 and $893,053 in 2015.
The renegotiated police contract of 2015 contained incentives to not use sick days, including a higher payout of unused sick days upon retirement, to encourage employees not to call off.
Still, police overtime also can spike for various reasons, including long homicide investigations or special details, such as road projects, parades, races, or presidential or high-profile campaign appearances, Graziano said.
Taxpayers don't foot the bill for every penny of overtime.
Some overtime incurred, such as for parades, races, state road construction/traffic details or drug task force activities -- or, in the case of the Fire Department, responding to out-of-area or out-of-state emergencies -- is reimbursable from event sponsors, the chiefs said.
For example, the highest individual firefighter overtime amount last year -- $13,000 earned by John Judge -- involved a Federal Emergency Management Agency deployment response to Hurricane Matthew, and all of it was reimbursed by FEMA, Judge and Lucas said. The Fire Department last year received a total of $19,000 in such overtime reimbursements, Lucas said. The other $6,000 came from "backfilling" other overtime incurred locally as a result of FEMA deployment.
One of three city firefighters trained and certified for FEMA responses, Judge said he just returned from a 24-day stint under a FEMA response to Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma.
The Police Department last year had $213,089 in overtime reimbursements from sponsors of that work, Graziano said.
As overtime dropped, the number of Scranton police officers and firefighters earning $100,000-plus in salaries also fell last year.
Overtime and raises boosted the pay for many of the 15 police officers and firefighters who earned six figures.
The six-figure group dropped from 22 in 2015 and 18 in 2014.
The median household income in the city is $37,551.
Four firefighters each took home six figures last year, a decline from eight in 2015 and on par with four in 2014.
Having 11 six-figure cops last year was a drop from 14 in each of 2014 and 2015.
Police Cpl. David Mitchell earned the most total wages in the city -- $119,822 -- which included $27,393 in overtime (second highest in the department) for working 568 overtime hours. His regular wage was $92,429.
A regular wage can include base salary, longevity pay, insurance buyback, clothing allowance and severance pay.
The top-paid firefighter last year was Richard Czyzyk, with $117,716 in regular wages. Czyzyk did not work any overtime in 2016, and retired around August 2016. His $117,716 total wages included $50,000 in severance pay, Lucas said.
Mitchell said he could not comment, as per department regulations, and deferred comment to Graziano.
Efforts to reach Czyzyk were unsuccessful.
Police and Fire Department heads do not get overtime. Graziano earned $118,434 last year. Fire Chief Patrick DeSarno earned $67,228.
Lucas applauded those who work overtime.
"That's a dedicated employee, and I'm glad he came in (on overtime). That's a hardworking guy. He's not there to suck up overtime," said Lucas, the deputy fire chief, who received $107,357 last year, which included $193 in overtime, or three hours' worth.
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How we got the information
The Times-Tribune filed a Right to Know Law request in January for earnings and overtime of city employees in 2016. It was similar to requests made in prior years.
The city initially did not respond to this latest request. Under the RTK Law, failure to reply after a certain time frame is deemed as a denial of the information requested.
The newspaper appealed this denial to the state Office of Open Records, and agreed to participate in mediation through OOR.
A mediator from the OOR based in Harrisburg came to Scranton on May 4 and met at City Hall with a reporter from the newspaper, the city solicitor and city open records officer to mediate the request.
After some additional back-and-forth discussions via email, the city Aug. 23 provided the newspaper with the information requested.
Highlights
An analysis of earning and overtime pay in 2016 for city employees showed:
As in prior years, police and firefighters last year earned the bulk of citywide overtime, 71 percent, or $829,155 of the $1.17 million citywide total. That represented the first drop below $1 million in at least three years, down from $1.38 million in 2015, $1.3 million in 2014 and $1.19 million in 2013.
Police overtime dropped 38 percent, to $556,133, last year.
Firefighter overtime fell 44 percent, to $273,021.
Department of Public Works overtime decreased 3 percent, or $10,207, from $319,677 in 2015 to $309,460 in 2016.
With overtime down, the number of employees earning more than $100,000 also fell. Eleven police officers -- not including Chief Carl Graziano -- earned six figures in 2016, down from 14 in 2015. Four firefighters topped $100,000 last year, down from eight in 2015.
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