NCFPD sick leave for January-March quarter up 28%

A non-voting information item presented during the April 28 North County Fire Protection District board meeting addressed overtime pay expenditures for the fiscal year’s third quarter which began Jan. 1 and ended March 31. The report indicated that sick leave for the quarter was 28% higher than the sick leave for the third quarter of fiscal year 2018-2019.

During the three-month period, NCFPD employees took 1,048.5 hours of sick leave. NCFPD fire chief Steve Abbott said he doubted that the additional sick leave was caused by the NCFPD firefighters, whose duties include paramedic services, who tested positive for coronavirus.

“It appears to be routine seasonal colds and flus which are still going around,” Abbott said. “They’re just getting sick from routine things.”

The sick leave includes firefighters who tested positive for the coronavirus.

“We had a total of six who tested positive,” Abbott said. “We had one test positive initially. We tested everybody.”

The additional five firefighters tested positive within a week of the first diagnosed case.

“Immediately when that started, we implemented all of the Department of Public Health workplace emergency controls,” Abbott said. “Thankfully all those emergency controls that we employed are working, because we've had no other cases, and that to me is reassuring. The policies that are being recommended appear to be very effective.”

The sick leave is thus attributed to regular illnesses.

“That’s fairly routine,” Abbott said. “The COVID-19 is adding another layer to that.”

The quarterly report indicated that the district had expended 78.99% of its annual overtime budget as of March 31.

“It would had to have been sick leave,” Abbott said. “We had canceled annual leave or what we called vacation leave during the first part of the crisis. We had no strike teams, no OES (Office of Emergency Services) requests.”

Although no NCFPD units were dispatched for wildfires between January and March, automatic aid and mutual aid agreements with nearby fire departments include reimbursement provisions, and the district has $113,563 of outstanding reimbursements for mutual aid. Payment of that amount would reduce the net overtime expenditures to 67.40% of the budget.

As of April 28, the North County Fire Protection District coverage area had 14 active coronavirus infections.

“The number of COVID-19 cases is up slightly in this town,” Abbott said.

“That’s an equally if not more important concept.”

The number does not include those who tested positive but have recovered.

“My plea to the community would be patience and persistence,” Abbott said. “We need to be patient and persistent as a community.”

Joe Naiman can be reached by email at [email protected].