Clintonville seeks to reduce police overtime
By Bert Lehman
To save money by not paying overtime to police officers, the Clintonville City Council approved a plan to buy out officers’ vacation time.
The council approved the buyout plan when it met Oct. 13.
Both City Administrator Sharon Eveland and Police Chief Craig Freitag recommended the plan.
Council Chairman Mike Hankins said that under the plan, the city would buy out around 240 hours of vacation so the city would not run into situations where overtime would be needed. This would result in the city paying less than if it had to pay overtime.
“The net effect is that it would actually save (the city) money,” Hankins said.
In an Oct. 6 memo to the Clintonville Finance Committee, Eveland said the city has “continuously struggled to maintain part-time officers who are available on a regular basis to fill vacant shifts caused by vacation absences.”
Because of this, the city has become reliant on overtime, which is expensive, Eveland said.
“At this point, there is a lot of overtime anticipated before the end of the year due to officers needing to take their vacation time or lose it,” Eveland said in the memo. “Both Chief Freitag and I believe that it would make more sense financially to pay out the vacation time that officers are willing to give up rather than pay overtime.
“While every effort would be made to fill those shifts otherwise with part-time officers, there is no guarantee and, if history proves accurate, it is unlikely that much of that time would be filled with part-time. In theory, part-time would be cheaper than paying out vacation but it is a gamble neither Chief or I feel is worth it.”
She added that the regular overtime pay for a full-time officer is $45 per hour, while it is $105 per hour on a holiday.
Ald. Jim Supanich said the city is having difficulty finding part-time officers to fill patrol shifts, and the vacation buyout option is a short-term solution to that problem.
He said he requested that the city and the police department review the manpower situation for 2021 to determine if another officer needs to be added to the police force.
“Otherwise we’re going to be right back in the same situation again,” Supanich said.
Mayor Richard Beggs said the amount of money the city spends in overtime for its police officers would pay roughly two-thirds of the salary of another full-time police officer.
Ald. Branden Braden, who is also a member of the city’s Finance Committee, said this would be a voluntary buyout of vacation time, not a forced buyout.
Feitag told the council that the department currently has one officer out with an injury. This officer will not be able to work for a while.
He said officers who had vacations planned during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic canceled those vacations.
Through the last three months of 2020, Freitag said the department identified 120 shifts that needed to be filled.
“We are trying to hire part-time (officers), however, people are putting a lot of money into their education going to the academy and they are looking for a full-time job,” Freitag said.
He also acknowledged the vacation buyout plan is not a yearly plan.
“If we can payout out some of this time it will help with burnout,” Freitag said. “The guys (officers) will do it, but they’re not excited about it. The captain has really stepped up filling shifts. He’s salary, he doesn’t get paid any extra. I’ve helped out with patrol shifts to try to lessen the burnout of the staff. So, this is what we came up with.”