The city’s firefighters are sabotaging a cost-savings plan by calling in sick and claiming on-the-job injuries, Public Safety Commissioner Steven M. Paré said Tuesday, citing statistics and a handful of incidents that point to what he describes as a “manipulation” of the Fire Department’s injury policy.
The number of firefighters filing injury claims has surged since Aug. 2, when Mayor Jorge O. Elorza tried to limit the city’s exposure to overtime expenses by reorganizing firefighters from four platoons to three and by instituting a different schedule.
Paré, who took on the role of acting chief over the weekend in an administrative shakeup, said he suspects firefighters are intentionally creating overtime by calling in sick and claiming on-duty injuries.
The timing of the claims, which shot up following the reorganization and have remained above previous levels, is “highly suspicious,” he said.
Injured-on-duty claims were below 20 firefighters per week, with just a handful exceptions, for most of 2014 and 2015. But after Aug. 2, the number of weekly injury claims shot into the 40s and hovered between 45 and 53 through September, October and into November, according to Paré.
“The speed and severity of the change is, in my opinion, statistically impossible under normal circumstances,” Paré said, “and inconsistent with what we would expect from fatigue or work environment changes.”
One chart shows that 64 percent of the firefighters’ sick days in August took place on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays.