Lombard to evaluate police lieutenants’ perk

A perk that comes with being a lieutenant for the Lombard Police Department — two days off each month in addition to other vacation time — will be examined as the village prepares its budget and conducts a salary study.

Trustees at a recent budget hearing asked the village manager and police chief to reconsider the perk.

“Isn’t that a prime way to look at saving costs?” Trustee Bill Ware said.

While Village Manager David Hulseberg said a salary study in progress will evaluate the lieutenants’ wages and time off, Chief Ray Byrne said eliminating the time would not change lieutenants’ salaries or affect the department’s budget.

“If the days disappeared tomorrow, there would be no savings,” Byrne said.

Lombard’s four lieutenants are paid a salary and are not part of a union. When they work overtime to take arrestees to court or handle other issues, they do not get any extra pay, Byrne said.

They also must coordinate their two monthly days off to ensure at least one supervisor is on duty at all times. Every shift has two sergeants and a lieutenant on duty, so the lieutenant can take off as long as one sergeant will be working, Byrne said.

“I don’t see the equilibrium. It’s still a paid day off,” Ware said.

Byrne said the policy allowing extra days off was in place before he became chief. When he took over, he said he eliminated it for sergeants, who are eligible to receive overtime for extra hours they put in or time spent at court.

Byrne should consider doing the same for lieutenants, Trustee Keith Giagnorio said.

“In this economy, it’s something that needs to strongly be looked at,” Giagnorio said. “On face value, it sounds like quite a perk, and I would strongly, strongly look at reconsidering it.”

Eliminating the twice monthly paid days off for four lieutenants would give the department an extra supervisor 96 days a year. That could increase staffing at a time when the department employs 67 sworn officers instead of its full strength number of 71, said Trustee Zachary Wilson, who originally raised questions about the days off.

Talk about lieutenants’ time off comes as the village board is beginning to prepare two budgets at once — one covering the last seven months of 2012 and another covering all of 2013 — because of an upcoming switch to calendar year budgets.

In a memo about the police department’s budgets, Byrne wrote that the department has six fewer police officers than it did two years ago and last year saved $230,000 by converting a full-time civilian job into two part-time positions.

Also in upcoming budgets, the department is requesting new expenditures of $30,000 to replace officers’ handguns in 2013, when they will be 10 years old, and $95,000 for software maintenance of a new records management system.