Overtime crippling HFD budget

Feb. 09--Hunters who headed to the woods for the opening weekend of deer season last November were safer than they likely realized, surrounded as they were by scores of trained firefighters and paramedics employed by the city of Houston.

So many firefighters took off work over that three-day weekend, the Houston Fire Department had to fill 420 shifts, resulting in a bill of $460,000 for overtime pay.

That one weekend is emblematic of a larger staffing and overtime problem that is driving the department over budget, raising concerns among City Council members and Mayor Annise Parker's administration, who say Fire Chief Terry Garrison and his command staff are hamstrung by a fire union contract that leaves them unable to effectively limit how many firefighters can take off work at any one time. Union officials say the administration simply failed to plan adequately.

Garrison said he has tried to offset the projected $8 million in unexpected overtime by cutting two of 12 assistant chief positions, reassigning 20 firefighters to field duties, postponing all training and scrapping a paramedic class.

Left in doubt are another paramedic class and one of six planned classes of firefighter cadets, though Garrison acknowledges postponing those would add to his staffing troubles.

Hard to fill shifts

The department's need to fill 832 shifts around the clock -- four per engine and ladder truck, two per ambulance -- leaves it in a difficult position when trying to cut costs, Garrison said; 92 percent of the fire department's $447 million budget is personnel.

"We don't have any more discretionary spending; we don't have any secret accounts or things we're saving for," the chief said. "The policy-makers are going to have to make a policy decision whether they provide us with the money to staff those units or not. If we have less than 832 people on duty, one of two things happens: Firefighter safety is compromised, or customer service is compromised."

The fire department takes planned vacations into account when scheduling staff, then adds a cushion for unscheduled leave, such as sick days. If enough firefighters take vacation, sick days or both, those shifts must be filled by others who get overtime pay.

All sides agree numerous factors contribute to the problem, most notably that the department stands about 190 firefighters short of the 3,570 needed to most efficiently run its emergency operations division.

Another factor is the expiration of caps negotiated in the firefighters' 2011 union contract that limited the number of employees who could take leave at any one time. Formulas limiting how many firefighters can take leave always have been in place, but stricter caps were added to protect the city budget during the economic recession.

One of the stricter caps expired at the end of 2011, allowing 21 more firefighters to schedule vacation on any given day. Another cap expired June 30, removing Garrison's ability to restrict when firefighters took holidays during the peak months of June, July, November and December. On an average day during the last six months of fiscal 2012, the department filled 38 of its 832 shifts with overtime. A year later, that had risen to 86 overtime shifts per day.

"If a lot of firefighters request -- as they did, say, on New Year's Day or the first day of hunting season -- if a lot of firefighters request vacation and a lot of firefighters call in sick on that day and it's within the caps we have on that, the chief has no ability to control that," city Finance Director Kelly Dowe said.

Paramedic shortage

Another factor contributing to the overtime crunch is that seven ambulances taken out of service during the recession rejoined the fleet last year, requiring another 14 shifts to be filled each day. Hoping to address a shortage of paramedics, the department also has sent two classes to training, making about 20 people per shift unavailable for nearly a year.

The paramedic shortage has led the department to give 60 paramedic interns more responsibility than in the past, dispatching them as the second staff member alongside a driver-paramedic. Historically, interns rode in the back of the unit alongside two more seasoned colleagues.

Council not pleased

The City Council reacted poorly to the budget news last week, with some pledging to hold the chief to his original budget. Garrison said council has been kept apprised of the problem and his responses.

"The way to address this, in my opinion, is to keep track of the monthly financial report, and the minute they step over their budget, you vote against everything anyone brings forward within that department," Councilman Dave Martin said. "That's how you maintain budget integrity."

In past years, Dowe said, the city could have used higher-than-projected collections of property and sales taxes to cover the overtime bill. In adopting the current budget last summer, however, council passed an amendment requiring these excess revenues to be saved, not spent.

"If you wish to stick to the amendment, we're going to have to make large cuts to departmental spending," Dowe told council last week, though the cuts would not necessarily come only in the fire department. "The ball is still in your court."

Even if HFD adds a few dozen members a year by pushing cadets through the academy, it will take years -- and many millions of dollars in overtime -- to catch up, said Bryan Sky-Eagle, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 341.

"They've had two budget cycles to prepare for this expiration date, and it doesn't appear they did anything. You did not hire enough people over the last two years; you did not forecast properly. These are management issues," Sky-Eagle said. "We're not asking for the overtime; we're not causing the overtime. All we're doing is showing up to work to do it. If you're serious about the overtime budget, you need to be serious about hiring more firefighters."

The department had hoped to gain 120 firefighters this fiscal year. If City Council does not fund the sixth cadet class, Executive Assistant Fire Chief Richard Mann said, that number could fall to as low as 75. Firefighter attrition also is running slightly ahead of projections.

Mann said it was hard to forecast the number of firefighters who would take leave because the department was coming off two years during which time off had been restricted. Further complicating the forecast, Dowe said, was that the city entered budget planning hoping that a task force trying to find a long-term solution to firefighter time off would succeed -- but it failed.

Mann said the department's main overtime problem comes from many firefighters scheduling vacation at once. City negotiators involved in ongoing talks over a new union contract have questioned whether firefighters are abusing unscheduled time off, noting that sick leave clusters around holidays and weekends.

Union: No abuse

Sky-Eagle said the union's research shows Houston firefighters use fewer sick days than their counterparts at other departments around the country, and Mann noted members' use of sick time dropped in 2013 from the previous year. However, the department has begun requiring members to present a doctor's note when taking sick leave on Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's or the Fourth of July.

"You haven't shown abuse," Sky-Eagle said. "Firemen said, 'Well, we've had two years of not being able to take summer vacation, let's now put in for that.' That was the deal that was made."

Copyright 2014 - Houston Chronicle