Excerpts from newschannle20.com:
During Fiscal Year 2018, Springfield city employees were paid $6.5 million in overtime pay. That’s an increase of over $1 million from 2017.
Of the FY 2018 overtime, $2.6 million came out of the city’s corporate fund, which is their general fund. The city is currently facing a $2.5 million structural deficit in that corporate fund.
In FY 2018, the Springfield Police Department paid out $1.6 million in overtime. Much of that was budgeted to cover items guaranteed in union contracts. To cut costs, the department is delaying hiring a new class of officers until January.
The Springfield Fire Department paid about $650,000 worth of overtime in FY 2018. Again, union contracts drove much of that. “Most of our overtime line, actually almost half, is really just budgeted holiday pay,” Springfield Fire Chief Allen Reyne said.
The state taking more tax dollars from the city, rising police and fire pension costs and less sales tax dollars coming in are also contributing to the deficit.
