Loose management of the Anchorage Fire Department's time-off calendar, especially in summer, has contributed to more than $1 million in excess overtime costs almost every year for at least the past decade, Fire Chief Denis LeBlanc told an Anchorage Assembly committee Thursday.
In an analysis of department budgets stretching back to 2007, LeBlanc and his deputies found that more firefighters, paramedics and engineers request time off in the summer months than any other time of the year. Managers appear to have accepted too many of those requests, LeBlanc said, leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra overtime to cover the open slots.