Four firefighters face suspension after a private investigator hired by the mayor of a Boston suburb videotaped them carrying furniture, shoveling snow, attending a hockey game, and doing other activities on sick days that suggested they were fit for duty, The Boston Globe reported earlier this week.
Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini said he elected to spend about $13,000 on the investigation after a multiyear effort by the city to curb overuse of sick time failed to improve attendance in the Fire Department, even as employees in other departments cut sick leave by about 1,000 days from 2005 to 2008.
Firefighters last year called in sick an average of 12 days each, more than three times as often as Haverhill’s police officers. About 20 percent of the roughly $8 million annual fire budget goes to overtime, to staff shifts for firefighters out sick or on vacation, Fiorentini said.
“We want to send a very clear message to everybody that we’re very serious about monitoring and controlling sick time,’’ Fiorentini said. “We consider ourselves here the guardians of the public dollars, and we’re going to take all reasonable steps, and we consider this a reasonable step.’’
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