WARWICK — A year after the city’s former mayor sold a new firefighters contract in part on the promise it would save $600,000 the first year, the department has run more than $1 million in the red, largely because of a steep overtime tab that saw the top earner make $316,000 last year.
That’s more than four times his base pay, and $219,000 of it was overtime. That translates to his averaging 78 hours of overtime on top of his 42-hour average work week.
“The optics of that stink to the public,” said Fire Chief Peter K. McMichael, adding that the department is down 20 firefighters from where he would like to be. “We see people having to fill in, often in a mandatory manner, not having the choice. We’re doing a lot of ordering [overtime] right now.”