I actually asked Chief Rose about his OT. He claims,and I don't think he lied, That as a salaried officer he does not get overtime. I know in the business I am in I turned down a few offers because it was a salaried position and therefore no OT.

I wouldn't take a pay cut knowing the Manager is getting a $10K raise. Would you?

@Blame-Game - You're going to complain about 7.5 months of Republican control during the worst fiscal time, but say nothing about 11 years of reckless spending by Democrats? Get real.

chris- you sound like obama blaming bush for everything that goes wrong.
i was at many meetings (and if patch existed) very vocal about the reckless spending the past 11 years. i wrote many letters trying to stop the massive rec center knowing all mr frie wanted was a moderate addition.
i am a conservative chris- however unlike you i will call out republicans when they are not doing a good job, not just the democrats.
heres a question chris- name me something positive the new majority has done the past 7.5 months? more importantly have you seen any sign of the reckless spendind coming to an end?

@BB- i was a metzler supporter but its going to take a lot for me to get passed the raise he just took. i find it very disturbing that when residents are struggling, public employees are asked to shorten hours, and he has the nerve to take a raise on his already very large salary.

Blame game, I agree about Metzler. Actually I don't think a raise should have even been on the table.

@john doe - Last year's storms certainly contributed to some of the increase in overtime last year, although I was surprised that it wasn't something officials I spoke to noted until I mentioned it. I can certainly try to pinpoint the numbers for you.

I haven't been able to get an adequate explanation for the huge jump in comp time last year, although I'll keep digging on that. For clarification's sake, know that officers can't carry over comp time from year to year. Any comp time not used by November of each year gets paid out.

@Harold - The comparison isn't that simple. The police staffing levels affect much more than overtime costs.

@Go Figure - I'm not sure about year's past, but certainly last year. When I asked the chief about overtime, the first thing he mentioned was officers on disability.

Fully agreed Mr. Figure, obviously the Borough only cares about the bottom line, otherwise the department would be at full force.

@Bruce - It's not my job to place blame.. My job is to report the facts. I'm not going to speculate and unnecessarily drag anyone's name through the mud until I can verify the truth. Once that happens, you'll see a story.

Zak, I don't exactly get what your saying in this article, the math is showing the borough saved money by reducing police services to the residents. Of course theres going to be an uptick in overtime when the force was reduced by the council, and yes they have to factor in injuries to officers, its a dangerous job no? Your article should say how does this council expect to get the force back to, or over its original strength, residents deserve better! The overtime is MINISCULE to the salaries saved along with health benefits. Zak, How about an investigative article on this, "Fair Lawn had 64 officers, they now have 54, what did the council do with the appropriated money for policing, where did it go"?

@Melvin - This article (and the ones that will follow) is intended to demonstrate how the reduction in police has affected the borough. It's not meant to serve as a justification for the decrease in staff, nor is it mean to serve as a justification for adding staff back. It's just a look at the effects of a decision made by prior councils. People are free to make their own conclusion on whether it's been a positive or negative effect.

I would also add that it's not fair to make a strict comparison of the salaries previously being paid to officers to the additional overtime now being accumulated by officers. Like I said in the article, there are multiple subtle ways that the reduction in police staffing has affected the borough, financially or otherwise, and that will be laid out further in future articles

Great point Melvin! Keep asking the questions the politicians don't want to answer.

Zak, do us a favor, grab a pen and pad and approach each and every councilperson, and say, "Hi, I'm Zak from the Patch, Where did all the money go that was originally budgeted for police services before all the cuts were made". PS, hint, don't reveal each councilpersons answers to each councilperson, and I bet you get 5 very different answers. More shockingly will be where the money really went!

I don't blame the Gov for the town's issues. He simply gave local governments the tools. How they choose to employ these tools are up to the towns. You can clearly see what the priorities are for this current council majority.
Taxes were raised this year and they will certainly be raised next year because there is a $900k deficit for 2013's budget. That number will rise before the end of the year.

Tommy, guys like us have budgets, if I were to reduce a very important line item in my house by 20%, would that not affect the whole household? Would that not affect that line item also by 20%, and wouldn't most wives say, hey, where did that money go? How do you cut the most important service in Fair Lawn and not explain where the money went or what they did with it? This is well over a million bucks folks! I hate to call you the 6th councilperson Zak, but this article is worthless without all the facts!

Michael, was it Trawinski or Metzler who came up with the $800,000 estimate for the pool?

Zac did the research and provided the financial info for the pool, including usage.

Nope, Michael, what Zak quoted in the last pool article was "In March, Deputy Mayor Ed Trawinski said he thought it cost the borough between $600,000 and $750,000 annually to run the pool." Zak also quoted the number of "almost $280,000" for the revenues.

So, Trawinski pulled this number from where? In the March article, it said "The borough doesn't break out the actual costs to operate the pool from the entire recreation department spend." It's certainly possible that we are looking at the pool costing almost half the recreation department spend, but.. hm? It still looks like Trawinski pulled the number out of the air.

Oh, and $600K minus $279K is $310K; $750K minus $279K is $479K. So, even using Trawinski's imaginary numbers, that's still below $500K by... more than twice Metzler's raise.

Metzler lives here? Since when?

@hold on - Thank you for the kind words. For clarification's sake, Metzler doesn't live in Fair Lawn

The dog had nothing to do with this. We are all responsible for electing these idiots Ds and Rs alike.

In case nobody has noticed, we are not in America any longer.

Who's the stunt double from the movie Red October?

If you put the hat on you look just like Sean Connery, a compliment no?