State auditor sounds alarm over $7.2M in Lincoln Fire and Rescue 2025 overtime pay

LINCOLN — Firefighters and rescue personnel in Nebraska’s capital city reportedly racked up $7.2 million in overtime pay last year, an amount the state auditor described as “staggering.”

A 15-page report released Tuesday by Nebraska Auditor Mike Foley showed that the Lincoln Fire and Rescue Department’s top 25 overtime earners received an average of $72,247 in overtime during 2025, boosting their average annual pay to nearly $190,000.

The top 100 overtime earners drew an extra $45,586 on average, bringing their average total salary to about $160,000. 

Ranking No. 1 was a fire apparatus operator hired in 2012. That firefighter’s overtime pay alone last year amounted to $164,176 — an amount higher than the individual’s gross base pay of $113,000, the auditor’s review showed. In 2024, the same employee received about $155,000 for overtime hours and, the year before that, about $115,000.

Meanwhile, Foley’s report said, the starting salary for a Lincoln firefighter last year was about $68,000. Total gross pay of the department for 2025 was about $45 million.

The report, which detailed individual salary and overtime pay for the entire department, was sent to Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird and City Council chair Brodey Weber. 

Call for ‘performance audit’

While Foley said he can’t recall ever hearing any citizen complaints about the first responders’ professionalism, he urged city officials to conduct a performance audit of the department’s personnel scheduling practices.

“More than $7.2 million in overtime pay during a single year is not chump change, and an objective performance audit of the department’s scheduling strategy might yield taxpayer savings,” Foley wrote in a news release.

Lincoln Fire Chief David Engler, responding via an email statement, said several factors have contributed to increased overtime in recent years including the opening of new stations, placement of additional medic units into daily service, employee leave and required training and deployment obligations. He also cited contractually negotiated staffing requirements and pay increases.

Engler said his department has a responsibility to ensure reliable, around-the-clock emergency response while being a sound steward of taxpayer dollars. He said overtime is a “necessary part” of the operation. 

“In some circumstances, overtime is more cost effective than adding permanent positions or outsourcing specialized work,” the fire chief said. 

Foley at the same time admonished city officials for apparent inactivity of the city committee charged with auditing duties. He said the Lincoln Municipal Code requires the City Council to select at least one subject annually for a performance audit by the city committee. However, he said, no such audits have occurred in over a decade.

Furthermore, said Foley, the code requires the committee to hold  meetings at least quarterly, but it apparently had not convened in about five years, since summer of 2021. He called that a “special kind of neglect.”

Matters to property taxes

Lincoln Fire and Rescue serves as the city’s local fire department, operating out of 16 fire stations and providing emergency medical and rescue services, fire suppression and prevention and community support programs. 

Foley, in an interview, praised firefighters for their service but said also that most taxpayers likely are not aware of how much the first responders are paid. It matters to property taxes, he said.

Foley’s team said the bulk of fire and rescue personnel, about 87%, are 56-hour-per-week employees who work a recurring 21-day cycle consisting of alternating 24-hour shifts on and off for 13 days, followed by eight consecutive days off duty.

According to the report, those firefighters automatically earn nine hours of overtime for working their “regular shifts.” Last year, that amounted to more than $2 million, about 28% of the total overtime paid for 2025.

“It is common also for department personnel to pick up extra shifts voluntarily on their regular days off, including during the eight-day ‘rest period,’ to increase either overtime compensation,” Foley said.

He noted that the department’s work schedule is the product of “complex” union negotiation ratified by the city, and that some of the overtime pay is “built into” the approved work schedule. 

But he said other firefighting companies around the nation use a variety of scheduling methods, and an “informed consideration of those different options might prove useful” when the city negotiates future labor contracts.

In commending Lincoln Fire and Rescue for “outstanding service,” Foley said “those courageous men and women deserve to be compensated well for protecting us — often at great personal risk.” 

But the auditor stressed also that a performance audit by the city would align with “previously neglected requirements” of the city code and also could help curb what he said appear to be inordinate overtime costs.

“Without an adequate study, such as through a performance audit, there would not be a way to determine which model may be more beneficial for the city and LFR staff,” the report said.

Audit panel reactivates 

Lincoln officials, in a response included in the report, acknowledged that the city’s Performance Audit Committee has been inactive for more than five years but said the city already had taken steps toward reactivation. The City Council on Aug. 31 adopted a resolution to initiate engagement with the committee.

The city’s response to the audit did not say specifically that the committee would review fire and rescue overtime practices. Foley said if it doesn’t happen, the city can expect to hear from him again. He said his office could conduct such a review, but the city would have to pay. 

Among the auditor team’s observations:

• Lincoln’s Fire and Rescue total overtime paid in 2024 was a bit higher than in 2025, reaching $7.29 million. In 2023, reported overtime pay was $6 million.
• After reviewing records of 10 select employees who earned overtime pay in 2025, the audit team highlighted one who was paid for eight hours of vacation leave on the same day she was paid nearly 10 hours of overtime. That resulted in $610 for overtime and $386 for vacation hours.

In their response, Lincoln officials agreed with that finding and said the city has collected the overpayment from the employee. 

The city, however, disputed Foley’s assertion that “inadequate documentation” was filed for that employee.

The auditor’s report reviewed overtime as it relates to the Urban Search and Rescue team, also referred to as Nebraska Task Force One. But Foley said in an interview that he did not see those missions as contributing to any problem.

The US&R team is an expert group that responds to local, state and national disaster emergencies. Participating agencies provide people who have specialized skill sets. 

In 2025, 37 members of Lincoln fire and rescue department deployed with the US&R team. Various members were assigned, for example, to help with flooding in Texas and Washington states and with a severe weather situation in Tennessee. Some members were deployed to Nebraska emergencies such as a Custer County wildfire and a building collapse in Fremont. Not all 37 were deployed for each event.

Foley noted that labor costs of the US&R assignments are to be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the appropriate agency responsible for addressing the emergency. Reimbursement includes the costs for those deployed as well as Lincoln employees needed to fill shift vacancies created.

Records show reimbursement during 2025 for about $1 million for costs related to US&R deployments and $200,000 for FEMA grants and training. The auditor team noted that full reimbursement takes an unpredictable amount of time. For example, funds for the July 2025 Texas assignment had not yet been received in full. 

Engler said fire officials recognize that consistently high overtime can signal a need for additional staffing. Since 2019, he said, the city has approved 33 new firefighter and firefighter-paramedic positions, including spots supported by federal grants, which have “significantly reduced overtime costs.”

The department continues to evaluate staffing and other strategies to reduce overtime “where practical,” he said.