A Times investigation: LAFD union head made $540,000 in a year, with huge overtime payouts

Long before the devastating fire in Pacific Palisades, leaders of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s labor union complained that the agency did not have enough money to keep the city safe.

“It’s a damn shame, and excuse my language, that it took this incident, the Pacific Palisades, to finally bring attention to our grossly understaffed, underfunded Fire Department,” Freddy Escobar, president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, said at a city Fire Commission meeting in February.

Union leaders, along with top LAFD commanders, said budget cuts had resulted in a backlog of engines needing repairs and not enough mechanics to fix them. But even as they denounced those reductions, the union leaders secured four years of pay raises for the city’s 3,300 firefighters through negotiations with Mayor Karen Bass. And firefighters often make much more than their base pay, with about 30% of the LAFD’s payroll costs going to overtime.

That includes Escobar and other top union officers, who have for years been padding their paychecks with overtime while also collecting a five- to six-figure union stipend, a Times investigation found.

Escobar made about $540,000 in 2022, the most recent year for which records of both his city and union earnings are available. He more than doubled his base salary of $184,034 with overtime payouts that year, earning a total of more than $424,500 from the city in pay and benefits, payroll data show.

He collected an additional $115,962 stipend from the union, according to its most recent federal tax filing. He reported working 48 hours a week on union and related duties, while records provided by the city for that year show he picked up an average of roughly 30 hours of overtime a week — a total of about 78 hours of work each week.

After inquiries from The Times, the LAFD said this week that it has launched a “comprehensive review and overhaul” of its procedures for tracking the hours and reimbursement of those on leave for the union.

“The Department has recognized the need for significant improvements to its accounting and timekeeping processes related to union release time,” the agency said.

Escobar, center, made about $540,000 in 2022, the most recent year for which records of both his city and union earnings are available. He doubled his base salary with overtime payouts, earning a total of more than $424,000 from the city while collecting an additional $115,000 from the union.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The overtime revelations come as the union, known as UFLAC, is facing scrutiny from its parent organization over its spending. The Washington D.C.-based International Assn. of Fire Fighters, which oversees local firefighter unions across the country, is conducting a wide-ranging audit of UFLAC’s finances, including the use of union credit cards by officers.

High overtime costs have long been a problem for the LAFD, whose around-the-clock staffing model depends heavily on employees taking on extra shifts. Many firefighters — who are typically scheduled for about 10 24-hour shifts a month, not including overtime — consider the option to boost their pay with extra hours at an increased rate an attractive feature of the job. But over the years, the LAFD’s reliance on overtime has generated concerns about fatigue, burnout and whether taxpayer dollars are being used effectively.

For many years, union leaders have warned the city that it needs to hire more firefighters to get overtime costs under control.

Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, said that overtime deployment is at the fire chief’s discretion and that the LAFD received $13.6 million this fiscal year to train three new classes of recruits. Seidl said that the LAFD union made salary increases one of its top priorities in contract negotiations but that Bass also secured $51 million for 10 fire engines, five trucks, 20 ambulances and other equipment. Bass’ proposed budget for 2025-26 includes 227 new LAFD positions, about half of them firefighters and including emergency medical technicians and mechanics, while some other city departments are slated for layoffs amid a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall.

Three months after Palisades fire, mayor proposes adding more than 200 LAFD jobs

Firefighters and fire captains last year made an average base salary of about $140,100, plus an average of $73,500 in overtime, according to the city’s payroll database.

Marc Bashoor, former chief of Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department in Maryland, who teaches leadership to firefighters across the country, said vacancies create more vacancies, because “everybody gets psychologically and physically tired of working.”

“It becomes this deafening cycle. People get tired of working and start getting injured, calling in sick,” Bashoor said. “Overtime begets overtime.”

Under its contract with the city, the union can place several of its 10 board members on full-time leave from their LAFD jobs while they still collect their regular salaries. The LAFD said the board members on leave are allowed to pick up extra shifts on nights, weekends or holidays outside of their 40-hour union workweek, being paid overtime at 1.5 times their hourly rate. That’s the arrangement Escobar has as union president, a post he has held since 2018.

Escobar, who had the highest union stipend among the board members, also made the most in overtime — $198,155 — in 2022, city and tax records show. The records show he made a total of $738,439 in overtime from 2018 through 2024. The LAFD said that overtime payouts include vacation time that is cashed out.

Freddy Escobar, head of the LAFD’s firefighters union, visits Fire Station 26.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Escobar is in his final two-year term as UFLAC president. He did not respond to questions from The Times, including which major emergencies he dealt with during his shifts and the length of his typical overtime shifts. He recently told a Times columnist that he picks up several shifts a month.

Records provided by the LAFD show that in 2022, Escobar took on an average of about nine overtime shifts a month. The shifts were typically overnight on weekdays, starting in the late afternoon and ranging from 12 to 16 hours. Some shifts, mostly on weekends, began in the morning and ran for 24 hours. For example, on one Sunday in January, he took a 24-hour shift starting at 8 a.m. For the next two days in a row, a Monday and a Tuesday, he took 14-hour overnight shifts starting at 6 p.m.

Including Escobar, UFLAC board members together made nearly $750,000 in overtime in 2022, while each collected a union stipend ranging from $67,000 to Escobar’s $115,962. All board members received a stipend, regardless of whether they were on leave, the tax records show.

In 2022, LAFD employees, including both firefighters and others, made $225 million in overtime. The Los Angeles Police Department, with more than triple the number of employees that year, spent about $214 million on overtime, records show. The city can be reimbursed by the state or federal government for some overtime work.

Former LAFD union secretary Adam Walker, who made almost $50,000 in overtime in 2022, said the department was dealing with a staffing shortage that year.

“The overtime was a mixture of mandatory overtime ... and voluntary in order to do my part in assuring that resources stayed open to serve the city,” he said in an email. Even though Walker was on full-time leave from the LAFD in 2022, the union’s tax filing reported that he worked only 23 hours a week on union and related duties. Walker said that number appeared to be a typo.

“I haven’t worked less than 60 hours a week since I was 18 years old. Accordingly, during 2022, I reported to duty as scheduled, working 40 plus hours a week,” he said, referring to his full-time union schedule.

A firefighter turns away from wind-blown smoke while battling the Eaton fire in Altadena on Jan. 8.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

In an email last week, the LAFD attributed the high overtime costs to staffing fire stations around the clock, even when people are out sick or on vacation. In the past, LAFD officials have also pointed to staffing shortages and large-scale emergencies, including extreme weather and wildfires, as fueling the costs.

An audit in 2019 found that LAFD overtime costs climbed from nearly $166 million in fiscal year 2014-15 to almost $193 million in 2018-19 due to wage increases, even though overtime hours hovered around 3 million for each of those years. At the time, the city controller called for better oversight and regulation to improve staffing and protect employees from burnout, as well as to ensure that taxpayer dollars were spent effectively.

L.A. fire officials could have put engines in the Palisades before the fire broke out. They didn’t

L.A. fire officials could have put engines in the Palisades before the fire broke out. They didn’t

With roughly 3,300 uniformed firefighters and 106 fire stations, the LAFD responds to more than 500,000 calls a year, or an average of more than 1,300 a day. According to the LAFD’s strategic plan, 81% of calls in 2022 involved medical emergencies, and the rest involved fires or other unspecified incidents.

The department is staffed by three 24-hour shifts, known as platoons, with about 1,000 firefighters on duty at any given time. When firefighters call out sick or are on vacation, their shifts are either backfilled by employees working overtime, or the department places some engines, ambulances or other equipment out of service for the day.

Oshea Orchid, an attorney who represented more than 1,100 LAFD firefighters in a federal lawsuit alleging they were stiffed out of overtime for being expected to show up to their shifts early, said the city is not hiring enough firefighters to keep up with those retiring or leaving.

“Because they sleep and live there, they’re willing to work overtime,” she said. “When you have less staff, you just have huge overtime bills.”

She added: “There’s no question in my mind that with more workers, more budget, you have more engines running — you’d have better service.”

An agreement to settle Orchid’s case for $9.5 million is pending, court records show.

Last year, LAFD employees received 23% of the city’s total overtime payouts, which reached $1.1 billion, the city’s payroll database shows. The Department of Water and Power accumulated the most overtime pay: $426 million. About $262 million in overtime went to LAFD employees, while the LAPD paid out more than $265 million in overtime.

The city’s highest-paid employee last year was LAFD Battalion Chief Nicholas Ferrari, who racked up more than $644,000 in overtime, with total pay and benefits of more than $928,000, according to city data. About a dozen LAFD employees each made more than $300,000 in overtime.

Ferrari did not respond to a request for comment.

Firefighters battle the Palisades fire off Bollinger Drive in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

In a December 2024 report, then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said a $7-million reduction to the overtime budget “severely limited the Department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires, earthquakes, hazardous material incidents, and large public events.”

But City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo told The Times in January that Fire Department overtime actually increased in this year’s budget by nearly $18 million.

The union’s parent organization, IAFF, is also examining the finances of UFLAC’s Fire Foundation, a charity for injured firefighters. That review resulted in the removal of Walker, the former UFLAC secretary, from his posts with both the labor union and the foundation board. The IAFF accused Walker of improperly depositing more than $75,000 of the charity’s funds into his personal accounts from December 2022 to January 2024, according to internal records reviewed by The Times.

Walker, who still works as a firefighter, disputed the allegations. He said the account he drew from was not for the charity but was set up for two golf tournaments to raise money for a disabled former firefighter. All of the deposits, he said, were reimbursements for his legitimate out-of-pocket expenses for the tournaments.

Separately, The Times found that UFLAC’s former treasurer, Domingo Albarran Jr., bought a union car at an alleged discount — and then reported an even lower sale price to the state to avoid paying taxes. Albarran, who has since retired, acknowledged that he underreported the sale price to the DMV because he did not want to pay taxes. But he said the price he paid was fair because the car was in poor condition.

Once the IAFF completes its financial audit, it will determine whether to place UFLAC under a conservatorship, which could result in the removal of officers, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation.

UFLAC has long been considered a political force in the city, with elected officials valuing its endorsements and financial contributions, although it backed the losing candidate in the last two mayoral elections with no incumbent running.

Union leaders also have fiercely backed Crowley, who was ousted by Bass over, in part, her handling of the Jan. 7 fire that leveled much of the Palisades and killed 12 people. Crowley and members of her executive staff blamed City Hall budget cuts for their inability to prevent or limit the scope of the destruction.

Firefighter union rallies behind LAFD chief, denounces unsigned attack on her performance

They said 40 fire engines — 1 in 5 of the LAFD’s fleet — were out of service when the blaze broke out because the Fire Department didn’t have enough money to fix or replace them. In an interview with a Fox 11 reporter, Crowley said the city of Los Angeles and its leaders had failed her and her department.

But The Times found that LAFD officials chose not to predeploy any engines in the Palisades amid extraordinary wind warnings, even though dozens were available. Bass cited the LAFD’s failure to keep 1,000 firefighters on duty for a second shift as one reason she ousted Crowley.

Bass and her team have also said that, once employee raises were factored in, the Fire Department budget actually grew this year.

“Chief Crowley had the guts and the courage to speak out,” Escobar said during a City Council hearing on whether to give Crowley her job back. “But her honesty cost her her job.”

Only two of 15 council members voted for Crowley’s reinstatement.