Medford city officials are reviewing what Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn believes was “questionable sick and overtime use” in the fire department, a move the fire union is blasting for her “baseless and defamatory statements.”
Lungo-Koehn, in a letter to the union earlier this month and in a public statement last week, called a wave of sick calls in the fire department between Feb. 2 – 6 an “orchestrated event,” costing the city over $92,000, the mayor alleges.
The union is fighting back, threatening to file an unfair labor practice complaint against Lungo-Koehn with the state Department of Labor Relations. A source told the Herald the complaint is expected to be filed by the end of the day Tuesday.
“Last week, Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn publicly attacked the Medford Firefighters Union, IAFF Local 1032, with nothing more than rumors and gossip, claiming that we promoted and facilitated sick time abuse within the Fire Department,” the union said in a statement Tuesday.
“Local 1032 has made numerous attempts to address these false accusations directly with the Mayor,” the union’s statement continues, “but each was ignored by her in favor of publicizing these allegations through baseless and defamatory statements on social media and the news. Local 1032 categorically denies any involvement in or facilitation of sick time abuse.”
The city’s human resources and law departments in conjunction with the mayor’s office are reviewing “what the Mayor believes is questionable sick and overtime use by some members of the department,” a city spokesperson told the Herald Tuesday morning.
Lungo-Koehn has threatened to refer the matter to the state’s Inspector General and Department of Labor Relations for further investigation “if the City’s review calls for such a referral,” according to a letter the mayor sent to union President Walter Buckley on Feb. 6, obtained by the Herald.
Officials, in a release issued last Wednesday, highlighted how “the majority of scheduled firefighters called out sick for a portion of their 24-hour shift in the first long weekend of February.”
Specifically, 21 of 23 firefighters scheduled to work that Saturday called out sick, with three missing work “due to a sickness in the member’s family,” Lungo-Koehn wrote in her letter to Buckley. That forced the department to staff the day shift with 21 members on overtime, she added.
“I believe that these excessive sick leave call outs over the weekend of February 2nd were an orchestrated event and my office will do everything in its power to continue to review it and make sure it does not happen again,” Lungo-Koehn said in last week’s release.
In Medford, firefighters work eight 24-hour shifts per month, with each shift being broken down into what is described as a “10-hour day tour” followed by a “14-hour night tour,” according to officials.
“Most of the firefighters who called out sick for the day tour portion of their shift between February 2 and February 6 reported for duty at 6 PM to work their night tour,” officials said in the release.
In total, the five-day period featuring the sick callouts “triggered costs to the city of over $92,000 – $58,000 of which was overtime,” the release states.
“These overtime expenses are a tremendous waste of City resources, threaten our ability to budget for the rest of the city and school departments, and the number of call outs, quite frankly, paints the (union) in a horrible light,” Lungo-Koehn wrote to Buckley.
After Buckley received the letter from the mayor, he wrote to union members that officials were beginning to review the sick leave, adding “this union does not condone or support any possible ‘job action’ by our members.”
“In order to protect our membership, I ask that you cease and desist any actions of this nature that could be misconstrued as illegal behavior or abuse of sick time,” Buckley wrote to members on Feb. 6 in a letter obtained by the Herald.
