The city of Aurora paid its firefighters $2.3 million in overtime last year — or 10 percent of department wages — sparking a financial inspection by city officials as contract negotiations with the union are set to begin.
The 2015 overtime amount is nearly $1 million more than what was paid out in 2011.
The increase has prompted the review by the city auditor and the city manager’s offices.
City Councilman Charlie Richardson places the blame at the top — with City Manager Skip Noe — and said relying on overtime instead of hiring more firefighters is “bare-bones” staffing.
“It’s reflective of poor city management in terms of not having adequate numbers of firefighters,” Richardson said. “Consistent multimillion-dollar overtime is bad for the taxpayers and bad for our firefighters. You can get run ragged. You’re just overwhelmed with the amount of work.”
In fact, the numbers are doing the opposite as the department has made few new hires over the past five years. In 2011, for example, the city paid $1.3 million in overtime for . Overtime pay jumped to $2.1 million in 2014 with the addition of only 10 firefighters.
Last year, that number peaked at nearly $2.28 million, which includes holiday pay. That’s an average of roughly $6,600 of overtime pay for each of the department’s 346 employees — although the amount of overtime each employee received varies.
City officials say there are several reasons for the spike in overtime. One factor, said, is how the city staffs its fire department.
For the most part, firefighters in Aurora are 24 hours on duty, 24 off, 24 on, 24 off and 24 on, followed by four days off.
In total, a normal Aurora firefighter’s work schedule is 212 hours over a 27-day period.
However, because of the Fair Labor Standards Act, anything over 204 hours requires that overtime be paid. Because of that, the city paid a total of about $500,000 in “mandatory overtime” in 2015, Noe said. That does not include overtime to cover vacant shifts when someone calls in sick, overtime on holidays and when extra staffing is needed for an event.
“We’re identifying the root of that and our options,” Noe said of the internal review. “Over the last several years, we’ve added positions to impact the overtime issue, and at this point, we’ve not seen significant results.”
The issue regarding adding staff, compared with paying more in overtime, is the challenge of every department. Denver firefighters, for example, work fewer shift hours than their counterparts in Aurora.
Melissa Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Denver Fire Department, said firefighters there are on duty for 24 hours then are off for 48 hours, with minor adjustments made each month. Over the same 27-day time period as Aurora, Denver firefighters work approximately 168 hours — significantly fewer than Aurora firefighters.
In 2015, the 1,014 uniformed Denver fire employees were paid $9.1 million in overtime, or more than 11 percent of department wages. But the department, which is much larger than Aurora’s, also provides coverage for Englewood and is reimbursed by other entities for some overtime, bringing costs out of its own pocket down to $4.5 million or about 5.5 percent of the overall wages of $81.82 million.
Similarly, of the overtime in 2015, Aurora was reimbursed $153,000.
Choosing to pay more in overtime, such as what Aurora does, instead of hiring additional firefighters “is not unusual,” said Garry Briese, executive director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs organization. It depends on the city and the fire department, he said.
“The city is balancing, trying to find a tipping point: paying overtime versus hiring new people and what that comes with,” Briese said.
The population growth Aurora has seen in recent years is another factor for the higher overtime pay, said Aurora Fire Chief Mike Garcia. The city has grown by roughly 40,000 people over the past five years to about 348,000 in 2015.
“I’m very concerned about it,” said City Councilwoman Barb Cleland, chairwoman of the city’s public-safety committee. “I ask, and they keep telling me that the overtime will go down.”
Aurora and the police and firefighters unions are expected to begin negotiations soon on a new contract, and staffing levels could be an issue.
If more firefighters are added to reduce overtime, the money will have to come from city coffers.
This week at a study session, the City Council forwarded a proposal for formal consideration that would add $750,000 to its spring supplemental budget for the fire department.
Garcia said he welcomes the audit and whatever change that might bring.
“I think it’s really important we are staffed properly,” he said.
