“Hopefully, this is going to bring an end to the massive overtime problem we’ve had in Martin County for the last 12 years,” Billington said. The county paid $2.3 million in overtime to fire rescue workers last year.

The grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will go to the County Commission for approval in late February or early March, Billington said. The grant money will be paid over the course of five years; after that the county will bear the full cost for the 33 new workers.

The goal is to start hiring the new fire rescue workers in April so they are fully trained in time for the start of the 2010 budget year on Oct. 1, Billington said.

Hiring enough new fire rescue workers to adequately staff the county’s fire rescue stations will allow the county to reduce its overtime budget for 2010 to $300,000 from $3 million, Billington said.

That will reduce the number of fire rescue workers who earn more than $100,000 per year because they are forced to work so much overtime, Billington said.

The Martin County Commission has 103 employees who earned more than $100,000 in the 2008 budget year, including 71 members of the fire rescue worker’s union, many of whom earned large amounts of overtime pay, county records show.

“I think we all realize that the so-called ‘$100,000 Club’ is something that we need to address,” said Commissioner Ed Ciampi.

But some veteran fire rescue supervisors will continue to earn more than $100,000 per year, even without much overtime pay, because of their longevity and expertise, Billington said.

In a related issue, County Commissioner Sarah Heard said the county must cut the salaries of its 850 employees to balance next year’s budget.

“I think we’re going to have to make pay cuts,” Heard said. “I don’t see how we can balance the budget without it. It’s a very unpopular thing to talk about, but it’s something that we have to do.”

Heard suggested the lowest-paid workers take the smallest pay cuts.

None of the other commissioners responded to Heard’s statement.

By George Andreassi

Tags: budget, chief, emergency, federal, fire, grants, money, overtime

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under Economy, Martin County, Stuart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.