Austin Fire Chief Joel Baker is shifting resources in response to a looming budget crunch, but the leader of the firefighters union says he's worried the money-rescuing effort could make fire crews less safe.
In a recent budget memo to firefighters, Baker said the Austin Fire Department had spent nearly $2 million more on overall overtime expenses than it had anticipated, just four months into the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 2019. Baker blamed the "unprecedented spending" on firefighters taking more sick, family and injury leave than expected, which spiked overtime costs when other firefighters had to fill the shifts.
"We can estimate and predict a lot of things, but the human factor, such as injuries, is not one of them," Baker said in a statement to the American-Statesman.
To scale back on overtime spending, Baker said he would move 19 firefighters in charge of running safety programs back to standard firefighting duties to help fill the 103 vacant positions within the department.
"Operations is our No. 1 mission, so filling vacancies in fire stations with personnel who are already trained and are simply being re-deployed back to the field will make the quickest impact on, and keep us in line with, our overtime budget," Baker said.
The changes should save the department $870,000 to $1 million for the 2020 budget, if those changes went into effect starting March 1, he said.
However, Austin firefighters union president Bob Nicks said Baker's decision to slash "vital safety programs" might save the department money, but it will put firefighters' lives at risk.
Some of the positions Baker removed were three chiefs who are responsible for safety while at the scene of a fire, a fire specialist who constantly updates a database of building layouts for safer response during emergencies, and two medical operations officers who are responsible for running the community center and recruiting future firefighters.
"Baker's decision really hits training and safety hard," Nicks said.
After taking a closer look into the 2020 overtime expenses, Nicks said he now believes firefighters taking time off has nothing to do with the budget crisis as Baker suggested.
According to Nicks, Baker requested too small of a budget from the Austin City Council and is now using firefighters as a scapegoat.
"Rather than admitting they made a mistake and asking Council for a mid-year budget adjustment, they are now slashing programs," Nicks said. "It's disgusting. We used to have a safety chief on every shift and that entire safety program is being eliminated and redeployed. Because of the budget mismanagement we are limiting programs that affect firefighter and resident safety."
In his statement to the American-Statesman, Baker confirmed Austin fire had no plans to ask the City Council for more money.
Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk's office last week said they are aware of the budget concerns and working with Austin fire officials to avoid bringing it before the council.
"By keeping a close eye on the budget and utilizing different methods to reduce the use of day-to-day overtime, there will be time to track results of those methods and make any necessary changes before considering bringing it to Council," Cronk's office said last Monday.
In his memo to firefighters, Baker said he would announce a plan in September for how and when the 19 staff positions will be re-established.
Issues with overspending on Austin fire's overtime budget may not be as "unprecedented" as Baker told firefighters in early February.
In a Sept. 9, 2019, budget workshop with City Council, Austin fire officials said the department, which had problems filling firefighter positions, continuously overspent on its overtime budget from 2015 until 2018.
Its issues peaked in 2017, when Austin fire spent $20 million on overtime, according to officials during the workshop.
Baker repeatedly defended the 2020 overtime budget to the City Council during the budget meeting while asking for approval of a program that would hire drivers for 27 shift commanders and operation battalion chiefs.
Baker said the program — which ultimately was denied — would cost $1.3 million in overtime expenses, but it would be covered by the $9 million already approved for the 2020 overtime budget. Another Austin fire official at the meeting assured city staff the department had solved its past issues with too many vacant firefighter positions and would spend less on overtime expenses in 2020.
Officials said that if the program was not approved, they expected to spend about $7.7 million on overtime in 2020.
According to figures of Feb. 7, the most recent data made available to the American-Statesman, Austin fire spent 52% of its budgeted $9.1 million, or about $4.7 million. The department had expected to spend only 31% of its budget by that time, or about $2.8 million.
However, Nicks said Baker and his staff should have easily predicted it would need a larger overtime budget for 2020 because in 2016, when Austin fire spent more than $14 million on overtime costs, they averaged 106 vacancies throughout the year.
This past September when the budget was approved, AFD had 84 vacancies and no plans to employ a new class of firefighters until the end of April.
"Everything was predictable," Nicks said. "They knew when the firefighter classes started. We have 103 vacancies now, just three less than in 2016. They said in the meeting that they were all caught up on vacancies."
Although Austin fire remains focused on reducing overtime expenses, Baker's February budget memo said officials also were investigating "layer after layer of causes" that also may have contributed to the budget shortfall.
Baker said the expansion of other critical programs — like cancer prevention, peer support, peer fitness and robotics emergency deployment team — without more funding or personnel to fill shifts, also could be contributing factors.
Nicks said he doubted Baker's explanation and requested data that would quantify the differences between fiscal year 2019 and 2020, including data showing an increase in overtime, sick days and family and medical leave for firefighters.
Nicks said he has yet to receive any data since his request was made in early February.
"Although this should be readily available data, they still have not produced information to support Baker's claims," Nicks said. "It appears he is simply deflecting blame for his budget mistakes onto the backs of the firefighters."
According to data provided by AFD, so far this year firefighters — including staff positions because they move in and out of assignments regularly — took 6,190 hours of family and medical leave, 49,007 hours of sick leave and 17,122 hours of injury leave.
Last year, the annual total hours were: 18,199 hours for family and medical leave, 39,222 for sick leave and 167,974 for injury leave. Austin fire spent about $8.5 million on overtime expenses, which was $1.12 million over budget.
"We asked them for a month-by-month breakdown of this data, but Austin fire has been very slow in coming with this information," Nicks said. "If we annualized the data compared to years past, it it appears sick, FMLA and injury leave has gone down. But, we cannot officially confirm that information until Austin fire gives us the data."
On Monday, Nicks plans to go before the Public Safety Commission with his concerns over Baker's decisions regarding safety.
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