Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service has taken steps to prevent sick leave abuse after an investigation last year revealed senior-level firefighters taking extended sick leave absences prior to retiring.
On Thursday, MCFRS division chief Diane Zuspan informed a County Council committee that sick leave abuse has declined due to changes such as identifying firefighters with four or more instances of unexcused sick leave and issuing renewed written guidelines to supervisors for tracking sick leave.
Firefighters are permitted to take up to four days of sick leave per year under current county regulations without providing a doctor’s note. A fifth unexcused absence results in a firefighter being placed on restricted status—meaning the firefighter would not be paid if he or she takes another unexcused sick day.
Zuspan, the head of administrative services for the department, said about 100 of the department’s approximately 1,000 firefighters are currently on sick leave notice, which means they’ve used up their four days of unexcused absences, while a little more than a dozen are on restricted status.
The department instituted tighter controls on sick days after a 2013 Inspector General’s report found seven of 14 battalion chiefs eligible for retirement took seven weeks of sick leave the year before they retired. In one instance, a battalion chief publicly boasted on Facebook he would be “burning” sick leave until his retirement and then proceeded to use 660 hours of sick leave over five months while posting pictures to his Facebook account during a Caribbean vacation and of himself sleeping in various locations.
In previous years, the department has also been criticized by county officials for sick day usage that may result in greater overtime costs.
Zuspan said MCFRS Chief Scott Goldstein has made solving the sick leave issue the “highest priority.”
“I think we have to do our due diligence in tracking sick days,” Zuspan said.
David Gottesman, manager of CountyStat, said county officials conducted two random audits of two MCFRS battalions to make sure sick leave policy changes were implemented. He said that in both audits MCFRS supervisors were able to produce documentation needed for firefighters legitimately on extended sick leave absence as well as records of sick day use by firefighters.
The Inspector General’s report also noted that replacing retiring firefighters using extended sick leave may have resulted in additional overtime costs because their shifts have to be covered to meet minimum staffing requirements.
Since the changes were implemented, there’s been a significant drop in overtime costs, according to statistics provided Thursday to the County Council’s Public Safety committee. The department’s overtime costs dropped from $5.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, which ended June 30, 2014, to $4.1 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, which ended June 30—a $1.2 million decrease.
Council member Marc Elrich asked if the department has seen any instances of firefighters swapping sick leave days in order to collect overtime pay. This happens when two firefighters take sick days on different days and then cover each other’s shifts and receive overtime pay.
Zuspan said the department monitors sick leave patterns to determine if firefighters are swapping sick leave days, but she did not have any knowledge of it occurring.
“It counts as abuse if we find those patterns,” Zuspan said.
