Last modified: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 12:41 AM EST NA firefighters OT slashed BY AMY DeMELIA SUN CHRONICLE STAFF NORTH ATTLEBORO - The fire department will have to make it through the rest of the fiscal year with just $50,000 to pay for overtime costs - or else it will have to approach town meeting for more money in June. Although the fire department originally requested $118,000 to boost its depleted overtime account, Representative Town Meeting members went along with the finance committee's recommendation that $50,000 be approved. "How come nobody knew about this?" asked RTM member Stephen Chapdelaine of Precinct 2. "Why wasn't there a tracking system on a month to month basis? I'm not in favor of approving a $50,000 Band-Aid when we haven't gotten to the root cause." Fire Chief Peter Lamb said he made it clear in April 2006 that the $265,000 budgeted for overtime would not be enough. In fact, overtime costs since 2001 have ranged from a high of $416,600 in 2001 to a low of $329,000 in 2005. "I understand the fire department has a shortfall. It just seems there was a disconnect with the fire department budget and whomever does the number crunching," said RTM member John Donohue of Precinct 7. "In the future, the numbers should be solid between the town side and the fire chief side." Lamb said the situation would have been impossible to predict. A combination of circumstances including two firefighters on medical leave, two firefighters leaving for Plainville and three others out for line-of-duty injuries helped to increase overtime costs. He stopped running the town's second ambulance four months into the fiscal year to save on overtime costs - the ambulance is only staffed if overtime is not needed to do so. "In my career as fire chief I've never seen anything like this," Lamb said. Lamb did not ask the RTM to consider overturning the finance committee's recommendation, saying he looked at the town budget and saw that the town budget is tight. He estimated that the $50,000 would provide for 10 to 12 weeks of overtime. The $50,000 appropriated to the department came from the town's $1.3 million in free cash - which was certified by the state Department of Revenue on Monday just prior to the town meeting.