Westminster Questions 4 on Overtime : Investigation: Others from the Fire Department will also go before a panel, which is probing possible abuse of sick leave and vacation time. Firefighters call it a witch hunt by the city.

Four top officials of the Fire Department were questioned Tuesday about possible knowledge or involvement in the alleged abuse of sick leave and vacation time, as city officials expanded their payroll-fraud investigation.

The interviews triggered charges from firefighters that the city has launched a politically motivated witch hunt.

A new three-member panel conducting the interviews is scheduled to question four more firefighters, including a battalion chief, today. The panel, which is conducting the probe for Fire Chief John T. DeMonaco Jr., includes a consultant hired by the city and two private investigators.

“The overtime abuse has been going on for a number of years,” said Mayor Charles V. Smith. “We’re looking into every member of the Fire Department. I don’t know if the interviews would be limited to the eight.”

The interviews are part of an internal review of the Fire Department that began last year after an audit revealed that the city paid nearly $2 million in overtime to firefighters over the previous two fiscal years.

The department is now the subject of a criminal investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office. But no criminal charges have been filed to date,

Leaders of the Westminster Firefighters Local 2425, which is leading a recall of four of the city’s five council members over cuts made in this year’s Fire Department budget, called the questioning a “witch hunt.”

Mike Garrison, a Fire Department captain, charged that City Council members are trying to discredit the firefighters, who succeeded this month in gathering enough signatures to force the city’s first-ever recall election.

“It is intended to divert the people’s attention away from the recall,” said Garrison, who was among the four employees questioned Tuesday. Garrison was suspended in January for an unrelated matter.

Mayor Smith and council members Craig Schweisinger, Charmayne S. Bohman and Tony Lam will face voters June 7. The firefighters launched the recall campaign last year after the City Council cut more than $1 million from the department’s budget, eliminating one firetruck and forcing the layoff of five firefighters.

All five council members said the cuts were necessary to balance the city’s budget, contending that the firefighters started the recall effort because they do not want to lose their overtime pay. But firefighters charged that the budget cuts jeopardized public safety. So far, only one department employee, Paul Gilbrook, president of the firefighters union, has been disciplined as a result of the investigation.

Gilbrook was fired last month for allegedly driving a firetruck with a suspended license and using sick leave improperly. He has asked for non-binding arbitration to resolve his case, and has appealed to the Merit Commission, a city panel that reviews disciplinary actions against employees.

The inquiry into Gilbrook’s alleged violation of city sick leave policy led to the wider investigation of sick leave, vacation leave, time off and holiday pay in the Fire Department, said City Atty. Richard Jones. Gilbrook was the only firefighter questioned before Tuesday, when the new panel began its work.

Garrison said that panel members asked him Tuesday to explain more than 900 hours of sick leave, vacation leave, time off and holiday pay since 1986. Garrison was suspended in January for public comments about an ongoing fire investigation.

Armed with eight years’ worth of pay stubs, Garrison said he felt he had satisfied the investigating panel’s concerns, but said he had only 15 days to prepare.