The village of Fredonia hired two police officers and a firefighter at this week’s Board of Trustees meeting.

Alex Ahlstrom of Dunkirk and Billy Vickers of Gerry were approved as new full-time police officers by the trustees. Both will start April 1 and get paid $29.45 per hour.

The Fredonia Fire Department added Morgan Melbourne of Lancaster, effective March 4, at $21.52 an hour.

With Fredonia facing financially challenging times, village officials have expressed misgivings in recent months about adding to village payroll. However, when it comes to police, fire and Department of Public Works hires, concerns about public safety generally seem to override fiscal fears.

Officials also cited contractual and overtime issues at this week’s meeting for making the hires.

“There’s a resolution on tonight to hire a 13th fireman,” said Trustee LeeAnn Laxarony. “That would be to help relieve some of the overtime situation that we have. We’re paying lots and lots of money in overtime. To put it no other way, we need to stop the bleeding.”

Lazarony said it would actually save money to hire Melbourne, because then the village will not have to pay as much overtime to fill shifts.

“The overtime is just outrageous. These firemen are tired. They’re working a lot, a lot of overtime,” she said.

Lazarony said the police department hires “looked like great candidates, very impressive with both young men. I think that will help with the overtime that is also bleeding out the police department. They’re down four – five with Greg(ory Myers) moving into the police chief position.”

She added, “It’s not going to help initally… but over time, we’re going to save money. We should be able to see that in the next budget.”

Mayor Michael Ferguson said, “Before the public goes, ‘Oh, we’re hiring more people… We have contractual (staffing) minimums that we must keep. Right now, we are below those contractual minimums. The people that you’re hearing being hired are one-for-ones – one in, one out.”

“It just makes good fiscal sense to me to stop the money that’s flowing out of those departments because of the overtime,” Lazarony concluded.

None of the three hires were shown on the Board of Trustees meeting agenda posted on the village website.