LIHUE — Kauai Fire Department employees, according to budget documents, racked up more than $1.1 million in overtime expenses during the 2013 fiscal year. For next year, fire department officials are seeking a 22 percent bump in those funds, totaling
LIHUE — Kauai Fire Department employees, according to budget documents, racked up more than $1.1 million in overtime expenses during the 2013 fiscal year.
For next year, fire department officials are seeking a 22 percent bump in those funds, totaling $1.4 million, to cover future overtime costs.
Deputy Fire Chief John Blalock defended those costs during a county Cost Control Commission meeting on Monday, saying some of the costs are required for the county to comply with active collective bargaining agreements.
“Fiscally, I think overall, we’ve done a really good job at managing the budget that is presented to us,” Blalock said.
Overtime costs, according to budget documents, made up a small percentage of the fire department’s nearly $22.4 million budget last year. This year, the department is proposing a $25.5 million budget. For the last several days, county departments have been fine tuning their anticipated financial needs before the County Council votes on the fiscal year 2014-15 budget in May.
Still, Blalock explained that KFD’s overtime expenses are divided into two separate categories — pay for full-time employees who work more than 40 hours and pay mandated by employee contracts for those who are scheduled to work on holidays.
Increasing overtime costs, Blalock said, may also be attributed to KFD’s Rank for Rank training program for specific employees, which is “designed to increase continuity in service when leave is taken by ranked personnel.”
Those participating in the program, Blalock said, are allowed 12 overtime days each year.
Last year, those participating in the program accrued $55,000 in overtime costs. Those same costs, according to budget documents, are projected to increase to $859,923 next year.
Other overtime costs, however, are unavoidable.
An example, he said, was last week’s large-scale rescue of 121 stranded hikers from Hanakapiai.
“The crew that was on that day, we held them back, and they went out early the next day as well,” Blalock said. “Because they knew most of the situation that they encountered, they got paid overtime for that work.”
While there are some funds set aside to supplement those costs, Blalock said, there is no way to determine what next year has in store.
“We have some cushion in there and we always need to build in some of that because we don’t know what we’ll go through,” Blalock said. “We’ve got brush fire season that’s coming up — again, what would that entail and how many fires? Even that is a typical issue for us. It was a wet winter for us, so there’s a lot of greenery out there, but what happens is that you won’t have it next year — everything that grew out is going to be dry, so it’s a fuel source that has to be looked at.”
