Unscheduled overtime for Vicksburg’s firefighters is costing the city an extra $300,000 to bring the fire department’s personnel costs in line with its 2015 budget.

The money was one of a series of budget amendments approved Wednesday by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen as city officials balanced and closed the books for fiscal 2015. The new fiscal year begins today.

City Accounting Director Doug Whittington said that total includes a 10 percent cushion to cover possible overtime when the firefighters receive the final paycheck of the fiscal year. Besides the $300,000 amendment to shore up the department’s personnel budget, which covers salaries and benefits, Whittington also had to increase the department’s contractor services by $35,000, which includes E-911 salaries.

Money to cover the two budget amendments totaling $335,000 including a $90,900 transfer of surplus funds from the ambulance department’s medical supplies and vehicles funds, and a transfer of $244,400 from “outside sources.”

Whittington identified the outside sources as surplus money from other departments in the city’s general fund, which finances all city departments except utilities, which are funded by user fees.

“I’ve got $244,400 (taken) from other services for the city,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said. “The fire department overtime has been running $31,000 to $32,000 over per pay period.”

Firefighters work 24-hour shifts. Under city policy, they work 2,912 hours a year and have 230 hours of overtime per year built into their pay, which is known as built-in overtime. Unscheduled overtime is overtime a firefighter receives if they are called to fill in for another firefighter because of illness or because a station is short-handed.

Whittington at a Sept. 16 meeting on fire department overtime estimated the department’s personnel budget could run between $265,000 to $270,000 overbudget. At that time, the department’s overtime costs totaled $783,212.40. It exceeded $800,000 on Sept. 23.

Fire Chief Charles Atkins has said part of the overtime problem is the result of a manpower shortage, adding he is 16 people short of being full-staffed.

Flaggs questioned whether the shortage is the full reason for the overtime.

“The way I look at it, if you just use the manpower dollars alone in the budget and nothing else, you wouldn’t have this deficit involved, so it’s got to be something else involved,” he said. “What’s triggering this is the vacation pay and the absences, because when you’re off 48 hours and then you call in, you’re costing the city time-and-a-half for the next 24 hours. You’re paying more.”

The board on Sept. 21 voted 2-1 to close Fire Station No. 7 for eight months out the year — Feb. 1 to Sept. 30 — and redistribute the firefighters at the station to other stations as a way to reduce overtime. North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield opposed the move, saying he supported a plan for fire Chief Charles Atkins to idle a pumper at the Central Fire Station and relocate one man per shift from that truck to Station 7 to increase manpower. Atkins said he has instituted that plan.

Because the plan to close Station 7 won’t go into effect for 90 days, Flaggs said he will give Atkins’ plan a chance.

“I told him he can go around any way he needs to (do) to help offset the overtime, including the policy that says they have to have three people at one time on a shift,” he said, but added, “I’m not a fireman, so I don’t see how that’s (idling one truck) is going to save money.

“I’m going to reserve comment on that for the next 90 days,” he said. “We ought to have an idea what the overtime (is) running compared to this year, and that will be a good way of telling whatever move he made. I’m willing to do this for 90 days, and if (after) 90 days we’re still running overtime, I’m going to have a big recommendation for you.”