Special Board of Aldermen 06-21-2021 Page 32
Mayor Donchess
While the Chief is occupied | could give a short answer and hopefully Skip is, the Chief is going to help him
so | will just answer. But let’s see if this does it. It has been looked at many times. There are additional
costs associated with hiring an additional officer which aren’t associated with overtime, now you pay an
entire whole benefits package and healthcare plan, etc. etc. In addition, it’s just not as easy as that. Like if
someone is on a crime what are you going to do? Go home and bring someone else that knows nothing
about the crime? Even if you could interrupt the investigation which probably you couldn’t. Someone is at
an accident you know hey you go home, come and get someone else. It is not so easy to interrupt an
operation right in the middle like that. So there are various reasons why overtime is required and | am sure
it is more complicated than I’ve just expressed but those are a few of the reasons. But again when you hire
someone new there are costs associated that you are not calculating.
Chief Carignan
And | would just like to echo, as much as | would love to have 100 new police officers it is unrealistic due to
unpredictability of police work. So the reality, it is actually cost effective to pay a certain amount of officers
overtime rather than hire new officers and pay the full benefits package. So it is a fine balance, | would be
happy to sit with you in our Finance Office to explain that to you at a later time if you wanted.
Paula Johnson 15 Westbourne Drive. Alderman Wilshire and | were just shaking our heads because when |
was on the board too we talked about adding more police officers versus overtime and benefits and
sometimes it does work out better that you are paying the overtime than bringing an officer in because if |
remember correctly it is not only just the benefits it is the uniforms and everything else that goes along with
the whole job description. But while you are here Chief | just want to let you know last year when
everything was happening in this country, Beth Scaer set up for us to do our Back the Blue and we stood
outside in front of your Police Station and we were waving our flags and our banners and we were letting
everybody know in this City that we were backing the blue and we want to thank you for everything you’ve
done for this City. And | remember even going home last year, | don’t live that far from the Police Station
and | wanted to say that | felt very safe in the community going by. The National Guard was there and you
were there and we all felt safe, | did in this community and | just want to give a heartfelt thank you to our
men and women in blue here in Nashua. Thank you.
Chairman Dowd
OK if there are no other questions on Police we will move to Fire - Department 152, Fire Department.
Thank you Chief. Are there any questions regarding the Fire Department? Seeing none? Name and
address?
Christina McKinney 6 South Gate Drive. | just want to call attention to the fact that what | see in the Budget
Book is $2.5 million planned for overtime.
Chairman Dowd
Mayor, do you want somebody to answer that? Good evening Chief.
Brian Rhodes, Fire Chief
Good evening, Brian Rhodes. | have the pleasure of serving as your Fire Chief. Again, everything the
Police Chief said and Ms. Smith said | echo all of that. We would love to have additional staff. Wwe have
been trying to get 1 additional staff for the last four years; 1 — it hasn’t happened. The overtime happens
because of training, injuries, sickness, vacation. This year the overtime budget was extremely high
because we had 4 firefighters at the State Vaccination site 7 days a week. We assisted Public Health with
their vaccination sites. We assisted with testing at the City sites. We are getting this money back from the
government, from the State and the Federal Government. But on a regular basis, this is as the Chief said,
we don’t know, | can’t pull people away from a fire. We had a 3 alarm fire 3 weeks ago at 11:30 at night.
