Apr 1, 2009 4:50 pm US/Pacific
The Scoop: Fire Sick Leave
R.E. Graswich
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
Most companies give full-time employees a certain number of sick days: they stay home sick but still get paid for the day. But, I have the scoop on how one Sacramento agency's employees are making the system work for them.
Spend a little time around the Sacramento Fire Department, and you'll hear stories of sick leave abuse. Here's the way it works:
A firefighter calls in sick when he's not really sick, knowing the fire house will back-fill with overtime. The so-called sick firefighter gets full pay. A colleague gets overtime. A couple of weeks later, they switch roles.
Does it realty work this way? And what is the city doing about it? It's a touchy issue at City Hall and among Fire Department brass. The Scoop is putting the question to the people in charge.
Sacramento Police once had a similar problem. They fixed it by ending the minimum staffing requirements and cracking down on overtime. Now cops have no incentive to play games with sick leave.
With the Sacramento city budget in awful shape, the fire department is under the microscope. Mayor Kevin Johnson is willing to look at anything – including the rule about having four firefighters on every rig. Some houses can run with three-man crews.
If the city really wants to rein in the firefighters, all the mayor needs to do is say he's looking at breaking up the 24 hour shift and going to 10 or 12 hour shifts. That would get the attention of a lot of firefighters, many of whom live miles away from Sacramento and have second jobs.
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