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Houston mayor defends overtime pay
According to the City of Houston Controller's Office, the overtime pay to vital municipal workers is deepening the city's multi-million-dollar deficit. FOX 26's Greg Groogan explains the clash between Controller Chris Hollins and Houston Mayor John Whitmire.
HOUSTON - Houston City Controller Chris Hollins declaring a crisis within a financial crisis, citing the ongoing payment of record overtime wages to police, firefighters and trash collectors.
Houston City Controller sounding the alarm on soaring overtime costs
"This year solid waste, fire and police are projected to exceed their overtime budgets by 75%, 95%, and 190% respectively," said Hollins at Wednesday's meeting of City Council.
Mayor John Whitmire, who ran on dramatically improving public safety, pushed back - suggesting Hollins was exaggerating the challenge.
"We've had two storms. We've had 260,000 suspended HPD cases (reinvestigated). There are so many reasons why we have reached into overtime, certainly the weekend (HPD) surges are $14 million each, which the public and this council are asking for," said Whitmire calling the Controller's report "political".
Hollins offered a terse response.
"Mayor, if you are not alarmed by these overtime figures, then we have a real problem," said Hollins.
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Houston city controller: City could go $72 million past overtime budget
According to the City of Houston Controller's Office, the overtime pay to vital municipal workers is deepening the city's $300 million deficit. FOX 26's Greg Groogan explains how the overtime pay is connected to understaffed departments.
What they're saying:
Frequent Whitmire adversary Councilman Edward Pollard was quick to pile in.
"It seems as if we are spending more than we are bringing in, and we are going in the wrong direction in our city finances," said Pollard.
Whitmire then openly pledged to fill the $300 million budget deficit in a matter of two months, purportedly through increased efficiency and quantifiable elimination of waste.
"You are, I hope, going to be impressed.... we are going to have a balanced budget that carries out our responsibilities," said Whitmire.
Later, speaking to reporters, the Mayor lashed out against his detractors.
"Scare tactics and politics just have no role in us trying to run this City," said Whitmire.
The Source: Information from Houston City Council meeting.