With budget debates ahead of the May 18 Town Meeting, overtime costs in the Police and Fire departments are again under scrutiny. But Swampscott Police Chief Ruben Quesada and Fire Chief Graham Archer said the expenses are largely driven by mandatory staffing requirements, training and contractual obligations – not discretionary spending.

Both chiefs said overtime is largely unavoidable in public safety departments that require 24/7 staffing coverage, even when employees are sick, on vacation, in training or appearing in court. It is often “rarely discretionary,” according to Quesada.

“If you want to keep the same level of service, we are going to need the overtime to continue,” Quesada said. 

In the police department, overtime needs begin immediately when an officer is hired. New recruits spend roughly five months in the academy, followed by about three months of field training before they can fully fill a shift.

“It’s not stopping just because we hired someone,” Quesada said. “We don’t see savings for almost a year.”

Fire Chief Archer said the hiring pipeline presents similar challenges, with limited academy capacity and delays between hiring and deployment.

“We’re not able to hire someone and immediately put them into the academy,” Archer said. “I can’t just hold three spots open for July. I have to have three people and give names, show that they’re hired…It usually takes on average about three months before they get a spot for them to go to the academy.”

In the interim, the Swampscott Fire Department hosts a “very basic” fundamentals training in-house and the new hires get to be on a truck under the guidance of a senior firefighter. 

“Since they’re not here filling a spot, their ‘absence’ will be filled with overtime, depending on how many people are on their shift to begin with,” Archer said.

The Swampscott Fire Department operates with four shifts per day, requiring at least seven firefighters per shift to staff an engine and ladder truck, with eight preferred during winter months when possible.

“If the new people are going to academy in the summertime, their absence brings the shift strength below seven,” Archer said. “If it’s a shift staffed at eight, there are times when they’ll be gone and it just doesn’t trigger overtime. But it certainly accelerates our overtime by having them gone.”

Even outside of training cycles, vacation and leave time regularly drive overtime needs. Senior firefighters carry multiple weeks of vacation, and staffing minimums must still be met regardless of absences.

“The more senior people have many more weeks of vacation time benefits to use,” Archer said, adding that because the department looks at a minimum number of people per truck it means even with people away, the station needs to be manned by at least seven firefighters. “Overtime is basically driven for one reason or another on any given shift that staffing would be drawn below that. It could be just for vacation time or personal time or maybe something short-term like someone’s sick.”

Police staffing is similarly affected by leave time, training requirements and mandatory duties. Department records show 754 vacation day allotments, along with additional personal, sick and longevity days, totaling 1,374 shifts of the 4,380 annually. Required training, court appearances and other obligations account for thousands of additional hours each year.

Altogether, those non-discretionary obligations amount to nearly 14,800 hours out of roughly 35,000 annual work hours, Quesada said.

“I have to juggle who’s off and how we will fill that in,” Quesada said. “That’s where overtime is not discretionary…When you add up all their vacation, their longevity, personal floating holiday sick time, in addition to their mandatory training hours I have too many (holes).”

He added that even additional staffing does not eliminate overtime needs.

“There’s no easy answer,” Quesada said. “Even if we have one police officer or two, it doesn’t change the overall dynamic. Every shift – you have three shifts – is required for officers, so what happens when somebody on the midnight shift is out sick, immediately that’s overtime.”

The department also cannot assign flexible “float” positions under its current union contract, limiting the ability to shift coverage during peak demand periods or absences.

Traditionally, the town has relied on “salary savings” from vacant positions to help offset overtime spending, Quesada said. He also noted that retention and recruitment challenges can complicate long-term staffing stability.

For the Police Department, which is authorized for 32 officers, average overtime spending from 2021 to 2025 has been about $611,123 annually, while the increase in the budget appropriation has been $135,005.

“Years prior, it was actually in the 700s and 800s before 2017, 2016,” Quesada said. “The bigger picture is that we’ve saved money and this is where the difference has been. We’ve been not too much over the total entire allocation given to us because those spots that were open, we paid for that. It’s the year-end shuffle.”

Fire staffing challenges are similarly complex, Archer said, with frequent fluctuations due to injuries, training cycles and even military deployments.

Town Administrator Nick Connors has requested more detailed analysis of staffing levels and overtime trends, Archer said, including whether there is an optimal staffing point that could reduce costs. But he said there is no simple formula.

“It’s a bit of a moving target,” Archer said. “Whenever we have an answer to that, someone might get injured or hurt or currently we have one member that’s in the military and is activated right now.”

Archer said he’s trying to “keep an eye on it and figure out ways to minimize it.”

“It is a bit of a balancing act between what’s cost effective for the town, at what staffing level,” Archer said. “It’s a tough number to come up with but we’re always working on it.”