Turley Publications photo by Jonathan Cook

Russ Anderson of Station A and Jason Dusza of Station B, a pair of on call firefighters who are still waiting for their pay.

Firefighters engulfed in pay dispute

Stipend account overdrawn by $15,000

By Jonathan Cook

Turley Publications Reporter

WARREN – Thirty-four on call firefighters are still waiting for their pay that was due June 10. They should have checks this week, but that pay will not be for the full amount earned.

The trouble began at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2009 when Fire Chief James Dolan decided to tweak the pay rate for on call firefighters because the previous set stipend amounts did not represent how much time and effort a firefighter put in, Dolan said.

According to Dolan, prior to the change, equal stipends were paid to firefighters who responded to 80 calls or eight. So, he changed that system to one based on work hours put in. And at the end of FY 2009, there was money left over in the on call stipend account, which began that year at $47,000.

Then came FY 2010, beginning last July 1. Due to his 10 percent budget reduction, Dolan said he had to remove $4,000 from the stipend account reducing it to about $43,000. “That put us behind the eight ball right away,” he said.

Add to that increased call volume and increased training required, he said, and “we went over budget.”

He explained that most of the on call firefighters ask to be paid before Christmas to have money during the holidays. But then, he said, he seldom looks at the account until the end of the year, when it’s time to pay out the rest that is owed. When he looked at that account this year, he was surprised to find he was $15,000 short.

So Dolan went to the Finance Committee seeking to supplement the budget, but was shot down.

Meanwhile, the firefighters said they were told they would get their full pay by June 10, if not by June 17 at the latest.

A dozen firefighters outside Tuesday night’s Board of Selectmen meeting, which was called to address the issue, all agreed that they had not clearly understood the basis for their pay even after asking Dolan for an explanation. However, Dolan said there were a few firefighters that came to him. When he explained what happened, Dolan said they were understanding. “There’s a handful of guys who are very irritated,” he said. “But most understand it’s not a perfect world.”

Dolan did manage to end the fiscal year with $3,000 surplus in another account. On Tuesday night, the Finance Committee was asked to certify the transfer of that money into the stipend account. But the vote was split – two for, two against and two abstained because they were affiliated with one or more on call firefighters.

Does that mean the $3,000 won’t be added to the pay? “I don’t know,” answered Finance Committee Chair Sue Como on Wednesday morning. “I haven’t even told the selectmen [about the vote] yet.”

For the selectmen, the issue became apparent when a “partial payment” was requested for the on call firefighters’ pay. The red flag was that the request emptied the account. They further learned for the first time that the pay schedule had been changed, which is not legal without approval at Town Meeting.

Dolan said, “it’s not a big cut in pay. It will cost every firefighter a few hundred dollars.” He added that in most cases it would be less than $200 missing for most firefighters. “Everyone is being paid equal,” he said.

He said one of the things that went wrong was lack of control over who responds to a call. “It could be two or it could be 20,” he said.

And while the account is limited, there were no limits on how many hours calls to which a firefighter could respond.

However, Dolan, who has been chief for 20 years, said the stress on the department has been adding up “because we don’t have the manpower resources from local industry anymore They used to pay guys to drop what they were doing and respond to fires.”

He lamented, “now a lot of people have two jobs.”

Meanwhile, the department has less money and more demand for services. He said in those circumstances, “you’re going to see this kind of thing.”

Moving forward, the selectmen asked Dolan to have a new pay schedule that will limit earnings to a percentage of the money in the account, no matter how much that is. That schedule is due to be delivered to the board in three weeks.