Spring Break
City tries to recoup firemen O.T. pay
Greg Grisolano
Issue date: 3/15/07 Section: Front Page
| A divided City Commission voted 3-2 Tuesday night in favor of reclaiming half of the $122,000 worth of overpaid wages to the Pittsburg Fire Department. After nearly two hours of debate, Mayor Marty Beezley cast the deciding vote to recoup money that had been overpaid because of a payroll error in the city's human resources department. "I think this moves the process along," Beezley said after the vote. "Nobody is a winner." The payroll error, uncovered by auditors, was corrected in May 2006. Thirty firefighters received on average an extra $4,075 over the course of 2005 and the first four months of 2006. Salaried employees, including Fire Chief Don Elmer and the battalion chiefs, do not receive overtime pay and were not affected by the glitch. Commissioners Patrick O'Bryan and David Nance also voted in favor of the motion, while Mark Werner and Bill Rushton opposed the proposal. About 25 off-duty firemen attended the meeting, many flanked by their wives and children. Department spokesmen Mike Simon and Bryan Main declined to comment on the decision after the meeting. Other firefighters present also declined comment. The commission's plan is to spread the repayments over a three-year period. City Attorney Henry Menghini will explore ways to reclaim the wages from at least three firefighters who benefited from the error but have since left the department. The city moved to reclaim the money from firefighters after striking out on collecting a claim through its insurance company, St. Paul's Traveler, which denied the claim on the amount of the payment error because there was no evidence of employee theft, according to city officials. During their presentation, the firefighters asked the city to consider scheduling a special meeting on the issue. "We were notified on Monday, March 5, that our presence was requested today," Simon said. "That only gave us eight days to prepare. This is a very complicated issue, and we don't want it to be rushed through." Federal rules allow firefighters to work up to 212 hours in 28 days at straight-time wages. All hours worked more than 212 hours in 28 days must be paid at 1.5 times the straight-time rate. The problem stems from the city issuing paychecks every two weeks, in a 14-day pay period. Firefighters' overtime was combining two time sheets. The firefighters' overtime was correctly calculated, but their straight time was overstated when the two time sheets were combined. A union representative from Kansas City Local 64, International Association of Fire Fighters, stated that all comments would come from union president Robert Wing, who is in Washington, D.C., on business. In the course of the auditors' investigation, it was determined that some firefighters and at least one of the city's payroll clerks reported the error some time in 2005, shortly after a new payroll system was implemented. According to Kansas statutes, the city has the right to recover an overpayment because of a payroll error. Main and the other firefighters contended that a series of errors were made. "To us, there was not one error alone that resulted in this overpayment," Main said. "The first error was the wrong person was in charge of coming up with the payroll system. The second error was when Allen Gill (the city manager) himself explained that payroll system to us three different times. "The third would be the refusal of individuals to follow up on the payroll clerk's identification of the problem early in 2005. And I think the fourth would be 16 months of this going on without anybody catching this or any type of audit. We feel the fault lies in the whole pay system and in City Hall." |
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pkurtz2
Phil Kurtz
posted 3/15/07 @ 11:07 AM CST
I think it is total BS that the city if going after the firefighters for ANY of that money. It was even noted that the firefighters tried to notify city hall about the miscalculation, but nobody did anything about the notification. (Continued…)
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