Staffing Mix-Up Prompts West Virginia Station Closure

Misunderstanding about overtime allocations and a large number of firefighters taking a day off led to a Charleston fire station being closed for half a day over the weekend.

The Bridge Road fire station was closed during the morning and early afternoon hours on Saturday, Charleston Fire Chief Chuck Overstreet said. The station was reopened about 5 p.m., he said.

The department had 19 firefighters off for the full day for various reasons, including military leave and vacation days, Overstreet said. Another firefighter took half a day off.

"Nineteen and a half people is a lot of people taking off in a day," the chief said.

Included in those numbers were four firefighters who took personal contingency leave days, City Manager David Molgaard said.

It takes 39 firefighters to cover all of the city's stations during a day, Molgaard said.

The city has 176 firefighters.

The fire department had overtime hours authorized that could have been used to fill the shifts, which would have kept the Bridge Road Station open all day, he said.

"They had enough money in their budget to fill those shifts and keep the station open," Molgaard said.

But the assistant chief on duty did not know the available overtime hours could be used for any shift and instead thought the authorized time was shift specific, Overstreet said.

"It's as much my fault as it is my assistant chief's," he said. "We thought you could only use overtime that is banked from a shift for that particular shift."

Molgaard said, "From a budgetary standpoint, we don't differentiate between the shifts."

Overstreet said fire department officials are leery of exceeding their overtime budgets because of the city's recent efforts to make budget cuts. He said he and the assistant chief were being too conservative with their overtime allotments.

"We've had people call us overtime mongers and stuff like that," Overstreet said. "So we're going to be very meticulous with our overtime."

The temporary closure did not cause any safety problems, both Overstreet and Molgaard said.

"I don't think they even got a call there," the chief said.

The Bridge Road Station receives the fewest calls of any station in the city, he said.

The two met with City Finance Director Joe Estep and Grant Gunnoe, the city's director of Homeland Security and Emergency Service, on Monday to discuss the closure and how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Molgaard doesn't think the number of firefighters taking the day off or the station closure had anything to do with recent friction between city leaders and firefighters.

"This was really just about getting everyone on the same page," he said.

The incident occurred during the first week of new policies limiting overtime for city firefighters, and bugs in the system needed to be worked out.

"This is a time that everyone needs to get their sea legs under them and figure out how everything will work," he said.

Firefighters and city officials have been at odds over recent cuts in the department. Overtime has been cut and vacant positions have been eliminated so the city can put more money toward paying down massive unfunded liabilities in police and firefighter pension plans.

Monday's meeting was a learning experience, Overstreet said. He now realizes he should have notified the media sooner, he said. Then people living in the neighborhood would have been aware the closure was temporary.

"People in a neighborhood need to know if their station is closed," he said.

Molgaard does not believe the problem will arise again. Overtime and other issues pertaining to the staffing of stations will be discussed on a month-to-month basis, he said.

But Overstreet said temporary closures could happen again if the right circumstances presented themselves.

"Guys will probably be taking their personal contingency days around Thanksgiving and Christmas," he said. "So this could happen again on a rare occasion."

The city adopted a policy late last year that eliminated sick leave and replaced it with personal contingency leave days. Those days can be used without the firefighter actually being sick.

A firefighter can carry up to 48 hours of personal contingency leave from one year to the next. Because of the new policy, all firefighters were given one 24-hour shift of personal leave time at the beginning of the year, Molgaard said.

Firefighters will accrue eight hours of personal leave time every month. This is the only year firefighters will be given 24 hours of personal contingency leave at the beginning of the year so they will not have enough hours to take off a full 24-hour shift until the end of the first quarter, Molgaard said.

"And there's an incentive for them not to take all of their days because they can carry them over to the next year. So I don't think we'll have a lot of guys taking a lot of personal days."

Administrators could ask council for more overtime money if it looks like the fire department will have problems manning stations.

"Our intention is that the firefighters will have the resources they need to fulfill their mission," Molgaard said.

Contact writer Paul Fallon at [email protected] or 304-348-4817.