Firefighters Overpaid $500,000

[advocate]

            A year has passed, and all is not well in the Sharonville Fire Department, I have heard rumors of a lack of communication on part of the city to their firefighters, these fine people made a decision to unionize when the city "accidentally overpaid them" ? (for 4 years) ? This was an attempt by the firefighters to resolve this type of situation and affirm their pay and benefits in writing, which is the purpose of collective bargaining, however it is viewed by some to be the root of all evil, and that the unions take away power from the municipality. This is not the case in Sharonville, these people love their jobs and the city they work for. The city doea a good job of taing care of their employees. 

            Now the fireman are being wrongfully accused of computer hacking of public information on the cities network, this I think is what they call union busting, threatening peoples jobs, hanging the fact that they have a new baby in their house and couldnt afford to be jobless, sad tactics to use on anyone, I am appauled at this, who is running the show down here ??

Firemans friend, the advocate

[Valley Cat]

From tomorrow's issue (the daily paper also got the story, but after I did. Unfortunately, I had to wait until tomorrow to publish it).

Recently, the City of Sharonville became aware of a glitch in its software that determines the paychecks fire fighters receive. An internal audit established there was an overpayment to about 40 fire fighters totaling over $500,000 over a four-year period. Fire fighters in Sharonville typically work a 24-hour period and then are off for 48 hours. Because the number of hours they work can fluctuate greatly from week to week, and also may involve overtime pay, the mistake was not noticed by the administration or firefighters. Neither did several state audits uncover the wrong payments. Mayor Virgil Lovitt, II, said that in effect, the men and women were sometimes being paid twice for four hours of overtime. The software has since been modified to account for the correct number of hours worked.
After an extensive investigation, the city concluded the payroll error was not intentional and no one involved in the payroll process gained a monetary benefit from the overpayments. Sharonville contacted the State Auditor’s office to ask for assistance in resolving the issue. Initially, the city passed an ordinance stating the intention to collect the overpayments from the fire fighters. After further discussion with the city’s legal counsel and State Auditor’s office and taking into account the financial impact to the fire fighters and their families, Sharonville City Council reconsidered and determined that forgiving the overpayment was the best course of action.
Mayor Lovitt stated, “We have one of the best fire and life safety departments in the region. It is in the best interest of the citizens of Sharonville to maintain the quality personnel that we have been able to attract and retain. This was a difficult decision for City Council to make and I appreciate the compassion they have displayed for the families involved.”
He went on to say the overpayments would not mean that taxes would need to be raised. Instead, spending on new equipment will be decreased slightly for a time.

IMO, the city did the right thing.