Hot topic: Audit urges Sacramento Fire Department to cut heavy reliance on overtime

The Sacramento Fire Department’s excessive reliance on overtime was responsible for a drastic jump in department payout, according to a report from Sacramento City Auditor Jorge Oseguera. The department paid out upward of $13 million in fiscal year 2014-15, compared to $7.4 million in fiscal year 2010-11.

Fire Department Chief Walt White responded to the report in a memo declaring that “corrective actions are being taken.”

In addition to the chief’s response, SFD and its union, Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522, expressed concerns that the report unfairly represented the agency’s current practices and the reasons for its heavy reliance on overtime in the recent past.

Among other issues, the report found that SFD failed to hire the appropriate number of employees to fill positions, and could have saved approximately $280,000 in overtime had it increased the number of hires. Despite these findings, Oseguera said that he felt encouraged that SFD was moving in the right direction.

“The objective … is to help the department that we’re auditing look at things a little differently and identify opportunities for creating efficiency and improving outcomes,” Oseguera told SN&R.

Specifically, the audit stated that negotiated overtime and incentive provisions may have had an unintended cost. The report estimated that the “rank-for-rank” requirement alone—in which firefighters who were trained and have applied for promotions wouldn’t be allowed to fill in for firefighters at other stations until they were fully promoted to said ranks—as being directly responsible for $850,000 in excess costs.

SFD spokesman Chris Harvey said the report painted an unfair picture of the department’s practices.

“It’s unfortunate when an audit comes out like this,” Harvey said. “They like to point fingers at firefighters who worked … 3,000 hours of overtime or made more than the fire chief himself. Yes that is a significant finding, but more significant is that those firefighters had to work each and every one of those hours and they had to have time away from their families. … It’s not like we were creating overtime that wasn’t there. … These individuals stepped up and worked these hours in order to keep neighborhood fire stations open and keep the public safe.”

Harvey explained that SFD had to cut its hiring budget during the economic recession of the late 2000s, but he agreed with the auditor that the time for a slow down in hires was over; and the department has taken steps to change that model. Another reason for SFD’s heavy reliance on overtime cited both by Harvey and by Roberto Padilla, spokesman for the firefighters’ union, was the unprecedented wildfire season spanning 2015 and 2016.

Padilla called the report’s information “outdated,” adding that many of the audit’s recommendations had already been addressed.

According to White’s response, contained in the audit report, SFD has hired more than 100 new firefighters in the last two years, and an additional 40 to 44 firefighters are expected to graduate from the firefighter academy in July.

For all the audit’s findings, Oseguera lauded the department’s recent efforts.

“I think it’s important to be forward looking when it comes to this,” Oseguera said. “I think they are committed to continuous improvement. We were able to work well with them to identify opportunities where potential improvement could materialize.”