By Jacqueline Koch
Chattanooga Times Free Press
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — With police overtime pay hitting more than $1 million in some years, the city is considering a way of cutting back by recalculating how officers earn it.
City officials and Chattanooga police administrators are discussing a plan to reduce overtime by calculating it on a monthly -- not daily -- basis.
Officials had placed the item on the City Council agenda for discussion but tabled it after deciding they needed more time to think through the plan.
Police officers now work 20 eight-hour days -- or 160 hours -- during a 28-day period and are paid overtime for any time worked over eight hours in a given day, said Sgt. Tom McKinney, a patrol sergeant.
The cost-reduction idea would pay overtime to officers who work more than 171 hours in a 28-day pay period, instead of focusing on daily hours. The change would bring the police department in line with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which covers overtime for sworn personnel such as police officers and firefighters.
The city has exceeded the federal standards and paid police officers more overtime than is required by law, Personnel Administrator Donna Kelley said. The plan would, in essence, meet the minimum requirements of the federal standard, she said.
Most Tennessee cities follow the Fair Labor Standards Act, said Richard Stokes, the municipal human resources director for the Municipal Technical Advisory Service in Nashville.
“The common practice is to abide by the Fair Labor Standards Act because ... to provide overtime on a daily basis is more expensive,” he said. “Some organizations in the past provided that benefit, and they changed because they saw their overtime costs escalated.”
Whom the plan would affect and how much money would be saved are yet to be discussed, mayoral spokesman Richard Beeland said.
“It’s something that we’re looking at, but we want to get some input from the unions and the departments before we go down that road,” he said. “We just really need some input from everyone.”
Firefighters already operate under the exact standards of the federal act.
Police Chief Freeman Cooper said he expects some employees to be disgruntled because they would not earn overtime pay as quickly as in the past.
“As a department head, of course, I support it as a way to save money,” he said. “It’s not going to cost them anything. It’s just going to be a delay in the way they see (their overtime pay).”
Sgt. McKinney said officers no longer would be paid time and half for the first 11 hours they work over 160 hours.
“That would be about a 30 percent pay cut,” he said. After the first 11 hours, the city would have other procedures like forced off days if officers were about to go into overtime, he said.
Front-line firefighters are not allowed overtime due to administration policies, said Capt. Jeff Eldridge, president of the Chattanooga Firefighters Association Local 820. Only on-call fire investigators and supply employees can receive overtime, he said.
Under the act, firefighters cannot work more than 204 hours in a 27-day period. But because their schedules require them to work 216 hours, they must use 12 hours of personal time instead of working and being paid overtime, Capt. Eldridge said.
By using their personal days for time they otherwise would have off, firefighters receive less personal time off than other city employees, he said.
“It’s not fair to us to use our own personal time that we earn to keep under these rules,” Capt. Eldridge said.
Police and city officials have discussed adopting the federal standard for years, most recently after budget talks last summer, Chief Cooper said. During the last fiscal year, the police department spent more than $1.2 million on overtime -- or more than $500,000 over what the city allots the department for overtime, according to city records.
The high overtime costs result from officers appearing in court when off duty, as well as staying late to attend to calls, Deputy Chief Mark Rawlston told the Chattanooga Times Free Press last year.
BY THE NUMBERS (Source: Times Free Press archives)
Overtime long has been an issue for Chattanooga police officers.
* 2008 -- The police department spent more than $500,000 over its overtime allotment last year.
* 2007 -- Halfway through the fiscal year, the police department racked up $750,000 worth of overtime, representing a 28 percent increase from the previous year.
* 2003 -- For the first three months of the fiscal year, the police department spent $432,765 in overtime, a 2.1 percent decrease.
* 2001 -- More than halfway through the fiscal year, the department spent $1.6 million on overtime.
* 1999-2000 -- The department spent $1.2 million on overtime.
WHAT’S NEXT
City officials and police officers will discuss the contingency plan to abide directly by the Fair Labor Standards Act for computing overtime. After enough discussion occurs, the City Council may place the item on its agenda for a vote.
Copyright 2009 Chattanooga Publishing Company