Council flags holiday‑pay and longevity discrepancies in fire budget documents

Councilors pressed the fire department and city staff on apparent inconsistencies between summary figures and line‑item totals in the department’s budget packet.

At one point a staff member told the council, "The holiday should be, '47," referencing $47,001.51 shown on a summary column, while another page listed holiday pay at $25,000. Council members also flagged a longevity‑pay discrepancy: a line on page 4 referenced a $164,000 increase while the underlying budget detail combined two lines (page 2 and page 6) that sum to about $158,000. City staff explained the total longevity amount is the sum of entries on two pages and offered to follow up with corrected pagination and a reconciliation.

Councilors asked the chief and staff to correct the document and to provide the ledger reconciliation so the council can see consistent totals before finalizing budget votes. The session ended with the council taking those clarifications under advisement as part of the city’s normal budget review timetable.