by Nicole Bradford
An overtime policy change that has drawn the ire of public safety employees continues to be a topic of conversation among city leaders and the police and firefighters associations.
After a lengthy conversation on November 11, it remained unclear whether the council would consider reversing all or part of a new policy that city staff say was designed to create clarity in pay plans and control over overtime costs.
“The big picture (is) we want a pay plan and policies that are transparent to the public, our elected officials and our employees,” City Manager Trent Epperson said. “This is about how we pay — where I want to be is we have that pay built into our base play plans.”
The city on September 18 announced changes to its FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) practices, including not counting benefit time toward hours worked as it had in the past.
“This change will enable us to more easily compare (pay) with our competitors in the market, greater control of our budgetary dollars we include in the budget for overtime and reduce the potential for what we’ve seen in our overtime budget,” Epperson said.
A large increase in overtime during a budget amendment last year, he said, prompted an internal review.
“One of the identified reasons was the practice of counting vacation and comp time as hours worked,” Epperson said, “so if they worked other shifts, anything over their (Fair Labor Standard Act) hours would be counted as overtime.”
This method makes it challenging, staff said, to manage and budget for overtime.
But the new policy also means officers or firefighters must work when they have emergencies, said PPOA member Scott McReynolds, who emphasized that most overtime is mandatory.
“Life is not so simple as to schedule when one needs a day away from the job,” he said. “We should not lose earned overtime because of a prohibitive policy adopted by the city manager’s office. We’re out there 24 hours a day, seven days a week doing this — we’re not here 9 to 5.”
“The biggest issue is communication,” Councilman Tony Carbone said. “We roll out this raise, and then, ‘Oh, by the way we’re doing a policy change.’ It feels like it’s us vs. them.’”
The city administration has been meeting with both associations and will continue to do so quarterly, Epperson said. Compensation will also be among the topics at a February workshop for city leaders and staff.
“We don’t want to hurt anybody. We want to pay fairly and equitably,” Mayor Kevin Cole said. “At the same time, there is a taxpayer attached to all this — we’ve got to thread that needle. We have a fiscal responsibility to look after the taxpayer.”
