Covington Fire Chief Mark Pierce announced his retirement at the end of February.
It was just two days after the Feb. 20 meeting where city commissioners publicly rebuked him for seemingly changing his mind about the city’s attempt to curtail fire department overtime spending in the face of ongoing budgetary strain.
The exchange at the commission meeting itself was preceded by a backlash from Professional Firefighters Local 38, Covington’s fire union, which argued that the proposed policy changes had the effect of reducing staff to the point they could not adequately operate department equipment and vehicles. The meeting culminated with the commissioners reversing course on overtime policy and bringing the required minimum fire staffing levels back up to 28 from the 26 that had been proposed.
Although the policy question has been resolved, the issue of city’s budget remains. At the same time, the union contends staffing levels in fire department are already too low, even with the minimum staffing requirements restored.
What do the numbers actually say, and what are some other realities that characterize the situation?
Finances
The city argues that fire department overtime costs are especially draining. The city’s most recent (unaudited) financial report put the fire department as the largest expenditure in the city’s tax-revenue-fueled general fund, at 35% of the fund’s overall budget.
City Manager Ken Smith expressed this line of argumentation at the commission meeting on Feb. 13.
“Last year, fiscal ’23, the fire department paid $1.3 million in unscheduled overtime,” Smith said. “That’s on top of 2.3 million in scheduled overtime, and it exceeded the budget by more than $900,000. This year, we already spent $1.74 million in overtime, including 620 in unscheduled overtime. So halfway through this fiscal year, we’ve already exceeded the unscheduled budget overtime by $220,000. That’s not sustainable.”
The city reiterated its position in an email to LINK nky this week.
“The Fire Department exceeded its budget for unscheduled overtime in Fiscal Year ’23 by $943,000 in salary alone (which amounts to nearly $1.5 million when you factor in other associated costs like pension and workers compensation). Its unscheduled overtime budget for fiscal year ’24 is $413,000, but only eight months into the fiscal year it has already almost doubled that figure, spending $734,000 in unscheduled overtime (salary alone). That is an unsustainable burden for taxpayers.”
Public records from Covington and similarly sized cities in Kentucky show that Covington’s firefighters receive higher gross compensation—a figure that includes base salaries, paid time off, and overtime before taxes—than other cities with similar population sizes.
The median gross pay for the whole firefighting staff, from the chief down to the cadets, was $94,201.61 in 2023. The closest city in the Northern Kentucky region with a median approaching that is Florence at $85,764.25, and Florence’s Fire Department is considerably smaller than Covington’s.
Base salaries in 2023 for Covington firefighters ranged from about $56,000 to just over $100,000, depending on experience level and rank, according to the department’s union contract. The median base salary for firefighters in the tri-state area is $47,520, according to O*NET, a data initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration and one of the main data sources for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency responsible for analyzing employment trends in the United States.
Ben Wasson, the president of Local 38, told LINK nky that the cities that serve as the main competitors to Covington in terms of recruiting and retention are Hamilton, Ohio, Florence and Newport. He added that run types and numbers, as well as demographic make-ups of those cities, served as the best comparisons in his view. This appears to be the case with Florence, as its run number and population size approaches that of Covington’s.
Moreover, per the city’s statement, compensation figures don’t fully capture the amount of money the city has to pay per firefighter. The city also incurs expenses for pension contributions, health insurance, workers’ compensation and other legally mandated set-asides, which can drastically increase the amount of money the city is responsible for. The firefighter who had the highest gross pay in 2023 at $163,276.51, for instance, in fact, cost the city $284,967.80, according to public records, which is about 43% higher in cost than the gross pay alone.
Fire
Wasson and Local 38 Treasurer & Secretary Andrew Schultz admitted that the city was in a tight spot financially but argued that the reliance on overtime–and the cost it incurred–was due primarily to the force being short-staffed. As of the beginning of March, the force has 116 of its 122 firefighting positions filled. Although public records showed the force was fully staffed in 2023, it did not show if and when firefighters retired or left the force, so it’s unclear if this was the case throughout the year. There have been at least four retirements and one resignation since last July, Schultz said.
“Overtime is a big number, so it kind of got a spotlight put on it by the city, understandably so,” Schultz said.
But, Schultz said, Local 38’s opinion was that “the only way you can combat that is with staffing and hiring.”
Schultz argued that the force had been understaffed for years. Thus, established firefighters have had to pick up the slack by clocking more unscheduled overtime hours.
“It has been multiple years, we have not been at 122,” Schultz said. “We have been at like 119 and below, with us currently at 116. So, obviously with being six below our budgeted number, we have to supplement that with overtime.”
When asked why it was difficult to keep the department fully staffed, Wasson said several factors were at play.
“Recruitment and retention has been getting harder and harder every year,” Wasson said.
One reason for this has been reforms to the state pension system, which has seen changes from a traditional, defined benefit plan that guaranteed a certain payout upon retirement to a hybrid cash plan similar to a 401(k). This decline in retirement payouts has discouraged people from entering firefighting; a similar dynamic has played out with police recruiting.
Likewise, benefit competition with neighboring areas was steep, Wasson said.
“Right now we have Indiana and Ohio that are staring us right in the face that have just better benefits,” Wasson said.
In addition, Wasson said, “There’s a high likelihood of cancer in our profession. We deal with the gamut of mental health stuff, PTSD being one of them. Wages and benefits of the private sector are better, and people want that better work life balance, and they’re choosing that over the fire service.”
Wasson said that Local 38 has lost two retired firefighters over the last six years to occupational cancers.
“And I think generational priorities have changed,” Wasson continued. “People are just looking for a different type of environment and a different type of flexibility and being stuck in one place for 25 years doesn’t really sound like what this new generation is interested in.”
Schultz also took issue with some of the city’s statements on the numbers. He granted that the overtime numbers were high, but when taken as a whole, the overall budget of the fire department is close to what one would expect for this time of year.
“If you look at where the fire department budget as a whole was at the end of January, obviously that is seven months, so you’re hoping to have spent 58% of your budget at that point,” Schultz said. “Holistically, the budget for the fire department was at 63%. So, we’re within 5% of where our holistic budget is supposed to be.”
The city’s most recently released financial numbers, which provided unaudited figures for the first half of the fiscal year from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, put the fire department’s budget at 56%.
Pierce declined to say whether the tension between the union and the city prompted his resignation, but he did say at the commission meeting on Feb. 20 he was confident the department could fill the empty fire positions.
The city agreed.
“Administrators continue to work with Fire Department leaders to try to fix the spending problem,” their email reads. “… with 179 people taking the most recent Fire exam, we’re confident they will have no problem filling those positions.”