Via: http://fbeu.net/2013/01/sitrep-32013/

Overtime blow out a sham

The idiotic KPI pressure gauges on the Department’s intranet site are a good metaphor for the silliness afflicting FRNSW generally these days. The annual overtime budget for 2012/13 is facing huge overruns not because of increased staff absences (the opposite applies) or even increased operations, but because it was set so pathetically low at $10M that it was never going to be met. Compare it with previous years:

Financial Year	Perm & Retd total spend	Overtime spend	Overtime as % of total
99/00	$167.9 M	$17.7 M	10.5 %
00/01	$173.6 M	$18.1 M	10.4 %
01/02	$181.9 M	$19.5 M	10.7 %
02/03	$196.3 M	$20.9 M	11.0 %
03/04	$209.3 M	$20.1 M	10.0 %
04/05	$222.6 M	$20.1 M	9.0 %
05/06	$240.3 M	$21.8 M	9.1 %
06/07	$258.6 M	$19.0 M	7.3 %
07/08	$271.6 M	$21.3 M	7.8 %
08/09	$290.5 M	$19.8 M	6.8 %
09/10	$307.5 M	$17.1 M	5.5 %
10/11	$316.3 M	$24.0 M	7.5 %
11/12	$323.2 M	$25.0 M	7.7 %
12/13	$324.6 M (estimate)	$10.0 M (budgeted)	3.1 %

Since 2000, the annual spend on firefighter overtime has averaged 8.7% of total firefighter wages, so both the 5 and 10 year trends were falling, not climbing. The inevitable and self-imposed “overtime blow out” in 2012/13 is simply a contrived prop with which the Minister and the Department are now using to beat and blame firefighters in order to justify their irresponsible budget cuts.

SITREP 3/2013 | FBEU.