Warwick firefighter budget soars as overtime climbs
WARWICK — A year after the city’s former mayor sold a new firefighters contract in part on the promise it would save $600,000 the first year, the department has run more than $1 million in the red, largely because of a steep overtime tab that saw the top earner make $316,000 last year. That’s more than four times his base pay, and $219,000 of it was overtime. That translates to his averaging 78 hours of overtime on top of his 42-hour average work week. “The optics of that stink to the public,” said Fire Chief Peter K. McMichael, adding that the department is down 20 firefighters fr...
Source: providencejournal.com