Firefighter Overtime Probes Urged

Top officials, including Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mike Antonovich and City Councilwoman Laura Chick, called for reviews Tuesday after revelations that firefighters are taking home record sums of overtime pay.

Responding to a story in The Times that reported that county and city firefighters made about $128 million in overtime last year, Antonovich requested that acting County Administrative Officer Sandra M. Davis and county Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman prepare a report on overtime, including “recommendations to correct those problems which have been raised.”

The Times found that Los Angeles stands alone among the biggest U.S. metropolitan areas for the sums of overtime it pays firefighters, many doubling salaries already among the country’s highest. More than 400 firefighters pocketed more than $40,000 each in overtime last year, with one city firefighter earning more than $100,000 in overtime.

Most of the time-and-a-half pay, The Times reported, was not for emergencies but for replacing firefighters out due to vacations, holidays, injuries, training, illnesses or personal leaves. While acknowledging that the sums can be eyebrow-raising, fire officials say hiring more firefighters to ease the overtime crunch would be more costly. However, The Times reported that numerous experts raised questions about whether that is the case and whether it is wise public policy to permit firefighters to work as many extra shifts as those in Los Angeles. The county’s top overtime-earner banked $65,068 above his salary last year, but he was on duty for 71 additional 24-hour shifts.

“Any time employees are making that much money through overtime, it really is straining the individuals,” acting county administrator Davis said, adding that she would ask the county auditor-controller’s office to assist in the review. “There’s only so many hours in a day, in a week, that people are functioning at proper levels.”

Chick requested that city Fire Chief William R. Bamattre attend the council’s next Public Safety Committee meeting to begin what she called an “in-depth and thorough” study of the department’s overtime policies.

Besides the expense, Chick also expressed concern about firefighter burnout due to working too much overtime. “And what’s the cost of that to taxpayers?” she asked. “It’s a lousy long-term approach.

“We’re talking about some serious policy issues here. What we need to do . . . and what we are going to begin to do next week is the kind of in-depth and thorough study that we haven’t done.”

City Controller Rick Tuttle called for officials to go a step further, recommending that officials “outside the department” be employed to probe the overtime issue.

“This whole area does need a close review and anything that can be done to reduce the costs of overtime without affecting the level of service is something that ought to be very carefully considered and followed up on,” Tuttle said.

Tuttle added that he believes outside reviewers should be tapped because “it’s a sensitive issue; it’s a pocketbook issue. And . . . the department could benefit from people outside the department taking a close look at this.”

Meanwhile, numerous angry firefighters telephoned The Times on Tuesday to criticize the newspaper’s report. One county firefighter said there was nothing wrong with firefighters earning large amounts of overtime because, he said, “we live at a time when Demi Moore gets paid $12 million to do a strip movie.”

Most firefighters who called the newspaper complained that it had focused on isolated cases of individuals who had made extravagant sums of overtime. Others said the reason there is so much overtime is that the county and city have refused to hire enough firefighters to do the job. Others emphasized how dangerous their work can be.

* Times staff writer Jeffrey L. Rabin contributed to this story.