County supervisors who were hoping to find extensive savings in overtime paid to firefighters and sheriff's deputies may not have found the answers they were looking for in the first presentation from ICMA Consulting Services last night. While finding some areas where savings might be achieved, overall the consultants hired to examine the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office and the Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Management and their overtime practices, found the county was operating efficiently; in some areas better than other departments they had examined.

In October, a five-member majority of the board authorized an independent analysis of the two departments and their cost of overtime pay to determine if staffing levels and methods of staff deployment are optimal for the county. The study's cost was capped at $175,000.

Both Fire-Rescue Chief Joseph Pozzo and Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson have said they need to use overtime to fill in for vacant positions and adequately staff shifts within their respective agencies. Both the fire-rescue system and the sheriff's office had allocated overtime budgets, $4.154 million and $4.823 million, respectively, for FY09. In that fiscal year, fire-rescue had actual overtime expenditures of $3,685,062, while the sheriff's office used $5,193,111 in overtime.

Continue reading… Leesburg Today – The Journal of Loudoun County – Consultants Find Model System For Fire-Rescue Overtime Costs; Improvements Suggested For Sheriff’s Office.