By Aly Van Dyke
Topeka Capital Journal – November 13, 2013
The city still is at least three months from having a comprehensive analysis into pay practices following overtime issues at the Topeka Fire Department.
Effective Saturday, the battalion chiefs and shift commanders won’t receive call back or overtime pay. However, until the analysis is completed, the city will pay the nine affected employees for additional time each pay period in an attempt to fairly compensate them for working longer weeks than typical employees.
“Given the situation, we felt that was the most fair solution going forward and to position us, most importantly, to get to a permanent solution,” city manager Jim Colson said Tuesday.
Shift commanders and battalion chiefs stopped receiving overtime and call back pay Saturday to bring the city back in compliance with federal labor standards.
To make compensation more appropriate to the chiefs, considering their schedules, each of the nine employees will receive 6.5 hours on each pay period in what is referred to in the industry as a Kelly Day. An internal document provided to The Topeka Capital-Journal shows those biweekly payments will range from $185.58 to $201.11.
However, considering the loss of overtime, call back and two other payments they were receiving, Colson said, the employees still will earn less money going forward.
The city as of Saturday ended its 12-year practice of paying overtime to fire battalion chiefs and shift commanders, bringing the department in line with federal labor standards that exempt management employees from the extra pay.
No figures were available Tuesday to indicate how much the fire chiefs earned in overtime from Aug. 20, when the city announced it would end the practice, and Saturday.
The three months between the decision and its execution were an effort to help the employees and their families adjust to the change, but not everyone agreed with the practice. City Councilman Chad Manspeaker made a point toward the end of every council meeting since the announcement to remind everyone the city still was paying the overtime costs.
Colson was quick to point out that the overtime pay to battalion chiefs and shift commanders shouldn’t be considered abuse, as fair labor standards don’t require employers to exempt management from overtime.
“I think there is a desire on many people’s part to turn this into something where somebody was taking advantage of something,” he said. “I think it’s much safer to interpret this as a policy decision that was made to address a complex problem. We’re addressing it as effectively as we can.”
Colson conceded he was briefed about the fire department overtime issue late last year, a few months after he became city manager, but he misinterpreted it as a symptom of a citywide compression issue. It was only within the week of an article appearing in The Topeka Capital-Journal on Aug. 16 that he fully understood the fire chief issue, he said.
“I can’t claim that nobody ever said anything,” he said. “I can tell you I didn’t pick up on it.”
The added pay still results in less money for the employees, Colson said.
Prior to the change, which also took effect Saturday, the positions received an extra 5.4 hours per pay period for “management over base” and another 12 hours every other pay period in lieu of a Kelly Day, he said.
A Kelly Day is a work week adjustment, 24-hour day off for which employees who work 24-hour days are compensated. Public safety agencies typically offer them in an attempt to help the schedule adjust itself, Colson explained. The fire department has seven Kelly Days per year, he said, which amounts to 168 hours, or 6.5 hours each pay period.
For the time being, he said, the only extra pay shift commanders and battalion chiefs will receive is for the 6.5 additional hours per pay period.
“We felt that it was fair, under the current situation, to compensate for the Kelly Day,” Colson said. “Other fire departments either provide Kelly Days or they compensate.”
Colson said he expects within the next week to present to the Topeka City Council a model by which it can conduct its citywide review into salary compression, which he expects will take another three to four months to conclude.
“We’re in the process of forming it,” he said. “I have the pieces in place, the objectives.”
The goal, he said, is to look into pay schedules and compression of pay in fire, police and public works departments, as well as the entire city.
”What we want to do is establish uniform, consistently applied and fair pay practices that are consistent with industry standards and, most importantly, are in the good long-term interest of the city of Topeka,” he said. “While we understand that we need to deal with fire, we also need to deal with police and public works. We have an opportunity right now to deal with this comprehensively.”
One of the main reasons behind the review is to get a better handle on compression — the victim, Colson said, of strapped budgets that allowed some bargaining units to earn pay increases at a faster rate than their superiors.
Generally speaking, the city tries to keep a 10 percent pay gap between promotions, human resources director Jacque Russell said previously. Colson confirmed the figure Tuesday.
Base pay to battalion chiefs in 2011 and 2012, on average, was 12 percent to 14 percent higher than the base salary of captains, their immediate subordinates, according to payroll data provided by the city.
The gap jumped to 20 percent in 2012 when comparing total compensation.
Colson said he couldn’t speak to those figures but pointed out the city hadn’t yet decided how to handle any compression issues at the fire department — or any department.
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