Capt. Kenneth Deibler hurt his right knee three years ago when he tripped over a picnic table during a training drill. The knee was operated on, and while he recovered he served on light duty for several months, which meant he couldn’t perform all of his normal duties.
The county paid him his full salary while he was on light duty, and increased his hourly wage by about 20 percent so he’d make the same working 40 hours a week as he’d normally make working 48 hours — the normal work time for full-duty firefighters, court records show.
But Deibler said he “worked a lot of overtime” prior to his injury, about 800 to 1000 hours a year, and didn’t get the same overtime pay on light duty. The loss of overtime dropped his total pay as much as $880 a week while on light duty, court records show.
Shortly after Deibler went to back to full duty, he twisted his other knee putting out a house fire. He went back to light duty for several months where he didn’t get as much overtime.
Diebler’s pay averaged about $150,000 a year in the three years before his accidents, with about $50,000 a year in overtime. He only made $29,000 in overtime in 2007 and $20,000 in 2008, county records show.
His lawyer said Deibler was legally entitled to half the difference between what his average wages while on full duty to what he earned on light duty. The state Workers’ Compensation Commission agreed and awarded Deibler the extra pay.
“For people who are doing overtime, that’s what the law says — it says you should get it,” said attorney Kenneth Berman. He added that cases like Deibler’s were common and he had never seen a county contest such an issue before.
“What the county is missing is that there’s a financial loss to him to doing light duty,” Berman said.
But county attorney Patricia Via said the county was seeking to overturn the commission’s ruling because overtime pay “is not guaranteed” and the county shouldn’t have to pay Deibler “overtime he might not have otherwise gotten.”
County Executive Ike Leggett is trying to lower the amount of overtime the county pays to firefighters, but the issue persists. Three fire captains were among the county’s highest earners last year, pulling in more than $95,000 each in overtime pay.
