From the Charleston Gazette: The city of Charleston, W.Wa., which merged its ambulance and fire departments 16 years ago, might split the services once again to save money and recruit paramedics, city leaders say.

Fire Chief Chuck Overstreet met with City Manager David Molgaard on Monday to discuss overtime and other issues raised by a recent TriData report on the fire department, which claimed the department had too many stations, slow response times, overworked paramedics, bad recordkeeping and excessive overtime compared with similar-sized cities.

To trim overtime, which has averaged $1.4 million a year recently, the consultants suggested cutting out "Kelley Days," extra days off firefighters earn to comply with state and federal wage-hour rules while working 24-hour shifts. Read entire article here.