NY Officials Wrestle with FF Staffing, OT amid Budget Crisis

COHOES, NY—Safe staffing levels and overtime expenses collided in the city fire department this past weekend after the city would not pay overtime to staff the Saturday platoon of firefighters at full strength, firefighters confirmed.

The city is facing a $1 million shortfall in revenues and is attempting to cut costs due to the coronavirus pandemic.  In this instance, Mayor Bill Keeler was looking at about $105,000 in firefighter overtime costs for the rest of the year to keep the fire department strength at seven to eight firefighters on a daily basis.

On Saturday, the city wouldn’t pay the overtime when just four firefighters were on duty. The rest were off. Cohoes does not have mandatory minimum staffing levels in the fire departments as other cities such as Troy do.

“We were a little upset,” Firefighter Brian Bullock, president of the Uniform Fire Fighters of Cohoes Local 2562, said Wednesday.

The union executive board met with Keeler, Fire Chief Joseph Fahd and members of the Common Council Public Safety Committee Tuesday to discuss the situation. They struck a tentative deal which will handle the city’s financial issues and the firefighters’ concerns about safe staffing levels. Keeler and Bullock declined to discuss the details of the tentative agreement pending the union membership vote.

“Public safety is my highest concern. Cohoes firefighter safety is a high concern. I want to protect the taxpayers. We’re taking a good hard look at finances,” Keeler said after the meeting Tuesday.

City officials said the city generally spends about $155,000 annually on overtime to maintain platoons at full strength when firefighters are off due to vacation, personal time or illness.  The city has spent about $50,000 for the first half of the year.

Without proper staffing levels, Bullock said the firefighters can’t properly battle a fire in a safe manner putting lives and property at risk.

“We understand the financial crisis the city is in, that the rest of the country is in,” Bullock said.

Keeler said he wants to avoid additional layoffs as the city moves forward.  The city recently laid off two secretaries as part of its cost cutting.

The fire department has one vacancy with 30 firefighters working in four platoons.  Currently, there are two platoons of eight firefighters and two platoons of seven firefighters.

Keeler and Bullock said the agreement should answer the issues each side is facing in regard to finances and safe staffing levels.

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