Ok, this has been mentioned numerous times by various city leaders as a solution to the Fire Department's overtime. Could someone please explain to me, since no one who puts forth the idea has, how this could possibly work and solve anything. 3 platoons, 5- 8 hour shifts per week. What about weekends? The way I understand how the police and sheriffs do it, is to have different people working a different schedule on each platoon so that the same number of people work each day over a 7 day period. To solve the problem of overtime you need enough persons assigned to work at a time, less anyone off on vacation, to leave at least 10 men working. Otherwise, there is no point in changing the schedule if minimum manning is going to be lowered anyways. In addition, at least 2 officers must be on duty at a time. I have tried to put together a schedule with 3 officers and 12 men on for a total of 15 men per platoon(the city's number). To spread each platoon over 7 days, results in 5 days with 11 men and 2 days with 10 men. Less vacation time of at least 3 men off, (but per contract now 4 men), that leaves us with a manning of 6 or 7, less anyone off unschedued(sick, bereavement, injury). It also would require replacing an officer whenever one was off, because only 1 day of the week has three 3 officers scheduled.

Now I don't see how this solves anything, it actually makes it worse. Right now we have 12 men per shift and starting Jan 1st will have up to 4 scheculed off. So under the current system we would at least start with a manning of 8. The new plan would start with 6 on some days.