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Dear Mr. DeFusco,

What you need to address is the continued organized theft and abuse of Warwick Firefighters by the use of the sick time / overtime scam which is supported by the "Substitution" clause in the contract documents. The research that I have compiled over the time period of 1 year collecting official documents from the city clearly indicates an organized scheme of fraud. The first fact is that the WFD hides the sick time in the budget and rolls it into the line item of salaries. They only itemize the non-uniform sick time (secretarial and alarm) unlike every other department that itemizes the sick time. Numerous attendance documents clearly indicate men that have been on vacation that call in sick on the first day of their rotation after vacation and the sick day is charged of to Title 45 (job related illness) and they are paid for the sick day and the sick day is not deducted from the city allocation of 20 days. I can list the names of the men and the dates if you wish.

The fact of the matter is that this practice is well known and coordinated among'st the men and has been for years. As an example, a man has a hangover so instead of taking a vacation day or a sick day he has another man "SUBSTITUTE " for him and he retains the sick day and vacation day to monetize it at the end of the year. It is well known that men pay each other to call in sick so other men can take advantage of overtime callbacks. Bear in mind, I have the documentation and more than willing to supply it.

I also have documentation from the state of certain fire fighters that bid state work at URI and take substitution days to go to work on a prevailing wage job. There is also the case of the current chief who took a leave of absence from the department to attend the state police training academy.

You should also be aware that under testimony chief Mcglaughlin stated last year that the six floaters are used to cover vacation days at straight time and that at no time can there be more than 6 men on vacation. Unfortunately, his deception was discovered by access to public records which show that in the first fiscal quarter of 2016, 1105 vacation days were all covered at the overtime rate.

The fact of the matter is that the sick time scam is about to come to an end as numerous departments across the country (including Tiverton RI) have been charged criminally for sick time abuse. You know it, I know it, and so does everyone else. Now we have the documents to substantiate it.