City Councillors will debate a spending proposal from City Manager Tom Ambrosino in the weeks ahead. The request seeks an additional $600,000 in fire overtime funds to be drawn from the City’s Free Cash account.
Last year’s Budget already allocated $900,000 for overtime, a figure that generated controversy at the time. Combined with this year’s budget, fire overtime expenditures would reach $1.5 million total.
This amount is in addition to state overtime funding for the Silver Line project, which supported a fourth engine company at a cost of $1.372 million—funding that came entirely from state sources approved as part of the Silver Line initiative.
A second contentious expense likely to resurface is the ‘Out of Grade’ pay category, which exceeded its budget by $80,000. Out of grade pay occurs when a superior officer sustains an injury and a subordinate officer assumes the higher rank position, triggering a higher pay grade. Chelsea has experienced multiple instances of senior fire officers going out on injury, with subordinates stepping up to fill those roles.
A third area drawing Fire Department scrutiny involves uncollectible fire details, totaling $105,116. Fire details are sometimes hired or mandated, yet property owners occasionally fail to pay their bills. The City covers firefighter wages and absorbs the cost of unpaid detail charges. This year, the fire department’s uncollected amount exceeded $100,000.
“fblikebutton_button” Councillor Leo Robinson stated, “My concerns within the Budget process and then now with deficit accounts are these three areas. I am concerned about fire overtime, about out of grade pay and about the uncollected details. We need to spend wisely. This was supposed to be better tracked and fixed last year when we had the same problems.”