SWAMPSCOTT — The Fire and Police departments discussed their budgets for fiscal year 2023 with the Finance Committee on Monday night.
The total public-safety budget for FY23 in the town administrator’s budget amounts to $7.75 million, which is 2.6 percent lower than in FY22.
The total Police Department budget is proposed at $3.94 million (a decrease of 4.4 percent from FY22) while the Fire Department budget is projected at $3.78 million (a decrease of less than 1 percent). The remaining expenses include $26,549 for the harbormaster and $4,500 for emergency management.
“What we did at the Police Department in presenting you with the budget was a status-quo budget,” said David Kurz, a Police Department consultant from MRI Inc. “This is an appropriate budget if nothing else happens.”
The new police chief, Dr. Ruben Quesada, started his job on Monday and was mostly observing the discussion.
Personnel expenses are the highest category in the department’s budget, including $2.45 million worth of salaries (that have not been renegotiated yet) and almost $489,000 of overtime compensation. However, Kurz pointed out that the overtime pay has decreased significantly: by 14.5 percent compared with FY22 and by 20.8 percent since 2017.
“If everything goes right, it will be fine; it will work,” said Kurz. “If it doesn’t, it won’t.”
Kurz said that, in FY22, officers were regularly working double shifts because of the four unfilled vacancies in the department, COVID-19–related absences and protests going on in Swampscott that were requiring overtime. At one point, there were as many as 10 people out at the same time.
“It was a perfect storm for us to meet the needs of the community,” said Kurz. “I know the town administrator pointed out they are making a lot of money, but they are not enjoying making that much money, candidly.”
Currently, the Police Department has three immediate openings and is awaiting the town administrator’s decision on who to hire as he was presented with several candidates.
The town administrator’s budget includes $24,000 for police-department training, which is 60 percent higher than last year.
“What is unfortunate for Dr. Quesada is that he doesn’t have a moment to digest what he wants as the CEO of the department, and what kind of training he wants to bring in,” said Kurz.
Kurz proposed more leadership training in FY23, because in his opinion the department was devoid of such training and not every supervisor in the department had the training corresponding to their new responsibilities after being promoted.
“That should start being attacked in a piecemeal kind of way,” said Kurz. “I don’t think there is any hidden concept in the fact that better-educated and better-trained officers make better decisions.”
A new level-funded line in the budget is a fitness incentive at $25,000. It was negotiated in the out-of-service contract and will allow the officers to voluntarily take a physical-agility test based on Massachusetts Police Academy standards, Kurz said.
Salaries in the Fire Department’s budget amount to $2.57 million, and have not been renegotiated with the union yet. Overtime compensation totals $515,000, or 7.4 percent lower than FY22.
“My overtime budget is such a moving target,” said Fire Chief Graham Archer.
He listed contractual vacations, time off the personnel takes during different seasons of the year and the number of vacancies in the department as factors affecting the overtime numbers. Archer said he based his projections on average numbers he has seen in the past three and five years, factoring raises in salaries and cost-of-living increases.
Archer said the department received a grant for training on apparatus and emergency-vehicle operation of $139,000, which will be applied to the overtime expenses.
Leaving civil service did not affect minimum manning requirements, which are still being negotiated between the town and the union. Minimum manning goes up by one member per shift in the three winter months, Archer said.
Currently, the Fire Department has three permanent vacancies, and one person is expected to retire shortly after the new fiscal year starts. One new firefighter has started training with the department this week and two more conditional offers have been made.
The Fire Department also has a new fitness incentive, which is $15,000. Archer said that it was negotiated as part of the contract while leaving civil service and the standards are still to be developed.
