Published: November 17, 2009 08:18 pm      

City officially joins suit against state

Somerset — The City of Somerset has officially joined with several other city and county governments in the state in filing a petition for declaratory judgment against the Kentucky Labor Cabinet following an audit regarding calculation of firefighter overtime and state training incentive pay for members of paid fire departments.

Madison County’s Fiscal Court and the cities of Cynthiana, Danville, Florence, Georgetown, Glasgow, Nicholasville, Paris, Richmond, Somerset, and Winchester are named on the petition, which was filed this week in Franklin County’s Circuit Court.

“The Labor Cabinet has been vigorously pursuing claims against local governments for alleged overtime owed on supplemental funds to firefighters funneled from the state through the Kentucky Fire Commission and the local governments,” reads a release from Lexington law firm Sturgill, Turner, Barker & Moloney, PLLC, which represents the City of Somerset.

“Firefighters receive these supplemental funds — $3,100 per year per firefighter — if they obtain a specific number of hours in fire service training each year. These funds are known as state training incentive funds. The Labor Cabinet seeks payment of overtime on these funds for each firefighter for five years, or more in some cases.”

Somerset City Attorney Carrie Wiese says cities had been calculating overtime pay for firefighters in a manner which had originally been deemed appropriate by state auditors, however, the outcome of a lawsuit later determined that some agencies weren’t making correct calculations. In the end, the state asked governmental agencies to recalculate and pay up to five years worth of overtime pay for some firefighters.

Attorneys for the city say the Kentucky Fire Commission, not local governments, have control over the state incentive fund program, and that, “over the years, the local governments have followed the directives of the Fire Commission in how to pay overtime.”

“The Fire Commission contracts with local governments to implement its policies and directives with respect to firefighter training and education requirements and the receipt, use, accounting, and distribution of the state training incentive funds,” the release says.

“The local governments have no control whatsoever on the requirements, the functioning, or the management of the state incentive fund program. The local governments act merely as conduits to funnel the money from the state to the firefighters.”

The declaratory judgment action seeks “a declaration of the rights and obligations of the local governments with respect to overtime on state training incentive funds where the local governments acted only as agents of the Commonwealth in distributing the funds to firefighters.”

“Bringing the declaratory judgment action is the most efficient and expeditious way to get these legal issues resolved and determine what the local governments’ legal obligations are,” the release says.