A report examining the salaries of firefighters with the City of Los Angeles (CA) Fire Department noted that 86 employees made more than $400K in 2022, with one fire captain making more than $700K.
The report from www.hddailynews.com noted that the captain who made $712,933 last year was the highest-paid employee in the city. The member had a base pay of $169,764 and was paid $502,681 for overtime, along with additional benefits.
The fire department spent $817.4 million on payroll in 2022, up 2.4% from $798.2 million in 2021, the report said.
Mandatory Overtime: A Legal and Safety Issue
Fire departments around the nation are struggling with staffing issues, including mandatory overtime, with firefighters in some cases contending with burnout from the job. As an example, a report in Willamette Week from October 2022 noted that Portland (OR) Fire & Rescue spent nearly $20 million on overtime this past fiscal year, with members reportedly having to work 16,000 hours of mandatory overtime.
