Of the fire department’s roughly $30 million proposed budget for next year, the biggest expenditure, outside of salaries, is overtime at $3.5 million.
At the budget hearing Monday night, Fire Chief William McKenna and Union President Paul Valletta explained why the overtime expense must be budgeted at this cost and discussed a statewide issue, which is that firefighters who retired on sick leave, some who have even passed on, aren’t yet approved for the state pension, leaving local departments to cover for their yearly salaries with overtime expenses.
McKenna said Cranston is the largest fire department in the state that has a state pension and has to deal with this issue.
Valletta claimed that the issue was caused by a lack of paperwork processing by the state, and because the firefighters who had to be put on leave, including some with cancer, haven’t been scheduled to see a state doctor yet, which is required for pension approval.