FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The city could save more than $100,000 a year by eliminating the policy of having “on-call” utility employees who receive 16 hours of overtime pay on weekends.

“Workers shouldn’t be paid for sitting at home or working in their yard, or whatever they are doing during standby time,” City Treasurer Nancy Wilson wrote in a report on budget suggestions requested by the Financial Advisory Committee. “Rotation of weekends being available for emergencies should be considered part of the job description, as it for all of us.

Two other department heads recommended that policy be eliminated or changed in reports discussed at Monday’s FAC meeting on ways for the city government to cut expenses and increase revenue.

“None of the municipalities I contacted pay eight hours of overtime a day,” Human Resources Director Rhonda Bishop said Tuesday. “Two municipalities pay four hours a day, but most of them pay two hours a day on weekends. And two cities only pay for work actually done when called in.”

Bishop’s report to the council-appointed FAC stated the city could save over $100,000 annually if the current on-call policy were eliminated.

“We paid $120,000 in fiscal year 2009 and $85,000 in fiscal year 2010 (to date),” Bishop stated.

She said Tuesday that each of the city’s three public utilities typically has one employee on-call every weekend, each of whom are paid 16 hours of overtime for that time period.

General Superintendent James Gillespie also recommended a new policy be established for on-call utility employees.

The 18-pages of cost-cutting and revenue-enhancing recommendations were submitted in individual reports by the following department heads: City Administrator Gregg Mims, Information Technology Director Jason Colee, Police Chief Bill Press, Senior Services Director Sherry Sullivan, Planning and Building Department Director Jonathan Smith, Parks and Recreation Director Tom Kuhl, Wilson, Electric Department Superintendent Scott Sligh, Gillespie, Water and Sewer Department Superintendent Dan McCrory, Golf Course Director Bobby Hall, Purchasing Manager Dan Ames, Public Works Director Jennifer Fidler and Bishop. Reports were not filed by the gas department, city clerk or city attorney.

Mims’ report showed $1.3 million in outstanding municipal court fines and utility fees, some dating back to the mid-1990s, he said.

“We ought to aggressively hunt those (amounts) out and collect (them),” he said at the FAC meeting. “We need to lay out a way in the future to prevent getting in this situation again.”