City officials have authorized increasing funds earmarked for overtime in both the fire and transit departments.
The Columbus City Council passed the second reading of an ordinance amending salaries and wages for city employees.
The amendment increases the unscheduled overtime budget at the Columbus Fire Department from $190,000 to $230,000 this year. At Columbus Transit, the overtime limit increases from $44,649 to $69,649.
“We are not requesting additional funds, because within the 100 levels of both departments there are sufficient funds to cover these increases,” said City Director of Finance, Operations and Risk Jamie Brinegar. He stated at a previous meeting that these changes will be sent to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance for approval.
At that time, Brinegar said both departments had already reached the overtime limits approved in the 2021 budget and “within the next month we could probably go over those amounts.”
As of Sept. 30, unplanned overtime wages at the Columbus Fire Department had reached $167,780 — nearly twice the amount incurred during the same period in 2019, when unplanned overtime was $86,066, according to city records.
Overtime wages at Columbus Transit had reached $42,362 at the end of September, about 1.5 times higher than during the same nine-month period in 2019, when overtime wages totaled $26,742.
City officials largely attributed the increase in overtime needed at the two departments this year to the pandemic, among other factors.
The fire department has also been impacted by ongoing training and an increase in work-related injuries that have required staff to miss work, causing other employees to accumulate overtime hours to fill shifts, Brinegar said.
Columbus Transit, on the other hand, has been struggling to fill open positions amid a nationwide shortage in bus drivers and has had to resort to paying current drivers overtime to avoid interrupting the city’s bus service.
“Due to this staff shortage and the goal of maintaining all bus routes, the department has had to rely on overtime for its drivers in order to maintain all routes,” Brinegar said in a memo to city council members.
