A Montgomery County firefighter made $315,000 last year — in overtime

A Montgomery County firefighter made more than $315,000 in overtime in 2025.

That, plus a regular salary, added up to more than $472,000 in total compensation — more than the salaries of County Executive Marc Elrich ($245,008), Police Chief Marc Yamada ($266,000) and Fire Chief Corey Smedley ($255,000).

The firefighter, who works at Station 25 in Aspen Hill, represents the most extreme example of a department that relies heavily on overtime.

Over the past decade, the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service has blown past its overtime budget. In each of the past three fiscal years, the overtime overruns have eclipsed $10 million.

These overruns concern those who worry that so much overtime exhausts firefighters, whose high-stress, lifesaving work requires them to stay alert. And it also bothers fiscal experts, who argue that too much overtime can throw budgets into disarray.

Susan Farag, the County Council’s senior budget and policy analyst, told the safety committee last month that the fire department should better estimate its overtime needs.

“It is imperative, in my opinion, that these are accurately reflected in the budget every year,” she said.

Within and beyond Maryland, cities, states and counties struggle with overtime, particularly for employees who work in round-the-clock services, such as police, fire and medical care, which require minimum staffing for safety. In Baltimore, for example, the police and fire departments both expect to overshoot their overtime budgets this year. The fire department is expected to exceed its overtime budget by more than $40 million.

“If you are already working that much overtime, that’s not safe. You’re not appropriately resting,” said County Council member Dawn Luedtke, who sits on the council’s Public Safety Committee. “That’s not safe for the worker and for the people.”

The budget is especially tight in Montgomery this year. The County Council last week took a straw vote on a spending plan that will likely involve layoffs in Montgomery County Public Schools and cuts to programs outside the school district.

The council on Thursday is expected to formally pass a $310 million fire department budget that earmarks $16.9 million for overtime.

The department, a combined fire and emergency medical service provider, handled about 143,000 emergency service calls in 2025. The vast majority, about 78%, were medical service calls.

It relies on guidance from the National Fire Protection Association, which recommends at least 300 fire department employees on duty at any given moment. The department includes 1,400 firefighters. Volunteers — about 1,300 — handle many of the county’s emergency calls, especially on nights and weekends.

“Overtime costs are always going to be there,” Smedley said. “We’re trying to find the sweet spot, if you will, of where overtime makes the most sense, as opposed to having too much overtime. That’s a delicate dance that we are constantly evaluating.”

Keeping firefighters and the community safe is “priceless,” he added.

Top earners

Firefighters work a regular 48-hour week before overtime kicks in.

Twenty county firefighters made more than $111,279 in overtime pay last year, making them the top overtime earners in the department, according to county statistics.

The fire department has exceeded its overtime budget since at least fiscal year 2014, when it had budgeted for $16.4 million in overtime but spent $17.4 million, according to records provided to the safety committee.

The overruns have mostly grown since then. In fiscal 2023, the department overspent its overtime budget by $11.7 million, and by $15.1 million in fiscal 2025.

The overtime budget overrun is projected to be about $11.7 million for fiscal year 2026.

Chief Smedley said the highest overtime earners in the department include many senior-level officers with advanced training, including hazmat and bomb techs and swift water rescue experts. “Each of those specialties come with additional pay upgrades and is critical to the safety of our community,” he said.

No one with the union that represents full-time firefighters in Montgomery County — the Montgomery County Career Fire Fighters Association, or IAFF Local 1664 — immediately responded to a request for comment Tuesday.

In an attempt to curtail overtime by about $1.8 million, the fire department has proposed moving nine full-time firefighters from the Hillandale Volunteer Fire Department to other parts of the county where fire officials say their services are needed more.

Council member Sidney Katz, who sits on the Public Safety Committee with Luedtke, said reducing overtime is secondary to ensuring a properly staffed department.

“The bottom line,” he said, is to have all the firefighters necessary to “be there as quickly as possible with the proper resources to make certain people’s lives are safe, because in many instances, seconds, not minutes, seconds — literally matter.”

According to Smedley: Overtime is a “cost of doing business.”