In 2008 Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler ordered mandatory drug testing in response to two paramedics arrested on drug charges, but in exchange the Mayor gave into extreme staffing demands by the Fire Union.  This quid-pro-quo resulted in $380,000 in increased overtime costs that was not reported to the City Council.
 
As the Lincoln Journal Star reported, the Mayor’s Office provided the City Council with a memo in September of 2008 asserting the cost of the new minimum standard of four firefighters per truck ‘should be minimal’.  However, a ‘minimal’ cost increase turned into a $380,000 request by Fire Department Chief Niles Ford to pay for the overtime associated with the new staffing guidelines.
 
The over 2,000 Lincoln members of AFP-Nebraska and the taxpayers of Lincoln deserve to be told what steps the Mayor’s Office will take to ensure transparency and accuracy in the future.
 
Mayor Buetler claimed a ‘minimum’ cost increase for requiring four union members on a truck, and when the City Council members challenged this assertion, Buetler refused to reevaluate budget calculations. Instead, Fire Chief Niles Ford, who had provided accurate cost estimates, was sent to explain the real cost of this new staffing requirement to the City Council, not Buetler.  

It is alarming and suspicious that accurate information provided by the City’s Fire Chief was not shared with the City Council; instead a "memo" was prepared by the Mayor’s Office with wholly inaccurate information.

When Chief Ford provides an accurate $387,000 estimate, it must be shared with the City Council and the taxpayers of Lincoln. AFP-Nebraska now asks Mayor Buetler to take responsibility for this fiasco, and to out like the steps he will take to ensure accuracy in the budget process and that information from department heads.