Firefighter OT $221K: A San Francisco firefighter has reportedly accrued $221,000 in overtime.
Lt. Gary Altenberg of Station 39 on Portola Avenue nabbed the massive sum last year, raising his overall paycheck to a whopping $363,000, reported the San Francisco Chronicle, which added that the sum was $50,000 more than the city’s fire chief’s salary.
The reason why Altenburg made so much was due to staffing shortages and management calling for more shifts.
“It’s mind-boggling,’’ Tom O’Connor, president of the San Francisco firefighters union, told the paper, elaborating on the staffing shortage.
“You are getting some real important calls — a lot of cases involving congestive heart failure and elderly patients that tend to show up in the early-morning hours — so you are not getting a lot of sleep,” he said.
Other firefighters in the city raised their paychecks by tens of thousands of dollars. Fireman Frederick Binkley nabbed $191,000 in overtime last year.
The San Francisco Fire Department told ABC News that the numbers are not as bad as they look.
“It’s somewhat the norm these days. But it’s not a shock factor because, it’s not, it’s money that is budgeted,” said Lt. Mindy Talmadge.
The fire department has used up its overtime budget and has asked for $4 million extra.
“If it’s saving life and providing the community, I’m all up for it,” San Francisco business owner Carlos Alejandro Ban told the station.
