Things Don’t Change; They Simply Get Worse
By Roldo Bartimole
Eight years ago I asked, “Who should schedule when firefighters are on duty – the city or the fire union?”
I guess they haven’t figured it out yet at city hall. Or they don’t want to figure it out.
The latest audit that revealed the disgusting waste of city tax funds because firefighters are using gimmicks to not work should rate a special grand jury.
Not only should heads roll but people may have to go to prison.
They have essentially been robbing the city blind. For years.
Safety Director Martin Flask should immediately resign or be fired. Same goes with Fire Chief Paul Stubbs.
Mayor Frank Jackson by making excuses for his leadership team doesn’t deserve to be in the office of mayor. He needs to go!
I wrote back in 2003 that on Oct 31 the city “had to call 28 firefighters for overtime duty!”
Then, as now, the city was facing financial crisis.
Here is what I wrote:
“The situation is this: Firefighters with seniority can choose to a degree what days they want to work. The record indicates that many choose Monday through Thursday. Without enough firefighters to cover, Friday through Sunday, requires the city to call in firefighters on overtime.
“The day before Oct. 31, a Thursday, there were three overtime firefighters called to duty. The day before, a Wednesday, none had to be called for duty. The day before that, Tuesday, none had to be called for duty. The day before that, Monday, one had to be called.
“The day before Sunday, October 26, once again the overtime kicked in with 14 firefighters called in to duty on overtime because of the lack of scheduled firefighters.”
I noted that it cost the city millions of dollars in overtime pay. At that time projected overtime costs were put at $5.12 million, up more than a million dollars over the previous year.
Now it seems some have refined their game so well that they work seemingly not at all.
This isn’t a city department. This is a club.
I went on:
“Return to Sunday and 12 firefighters on overtime, followed by 24 firefighters on overtime duty on Saturday and 11 more on Friday.”
And on and on, noting that on October 4, a Saturday, 35 firefighters were needed to complete shifts. On overtime.
This necessitates usually giving overtime to replace firefighters who would be serving at straight time pay schedules.
This is called a racket, or should be.
During September of the same year the need to bring on firefighters at overtime rates were 31, 25, 34 and 38 called in on overtime. That’s 128 overtime firefighters needed to fill requirements on Saturdays in this one month.
“What kind of craziness is this?” I asked.
I also wrote: “This is a life and death business yet it’s run as if it were some casual operation that didn’t depend upon its workforce.”
It seems clear that since 2003 the city operation has become more sloppy, more infected with irrational behavior.
The inmates are surely running the operation.
Again: Frank Jackson has to go!
Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.
He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]