Baltimore City Council members on Tuesday questioned Fire Department officials about the agency’s aging vehicles and stations and demanded more information on staffing policies and overtime costs.
The council members who sit on the public safety committee asked the department to provide them with data on its operations to help determine how best to allocate resources to improve response times, repair aging firehouses and vehicles, and provide proper overtime pay to employees.
The department’s faulty payment system has been miscalculating overtime pay since at least 2017, requiring the Fire Department to pay more than $180,000 to correct mistakes between Jan. 1, 2017, and Jan. 15, 2019. The problem has still not been fixed, Chief Niles Ford told the committee.
“It’s still going on?” asked Councilman Brandon Scott, chairman of the public safety committee.
“Yes,” Ford replied.