The Urbana Fire Division has slashed its overtime costs by almost 50 percent in the last year, which should help save the jobs of two firefighters.

Since 2011, the city has used a $285,735 Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant to cover the costs to keep two firefighters on its staff of 18 firefighters. The grant is scheduled to expire this spring.

But Mark Keller, chief of the Urbana Fire Division, said the division has slashed its total overtime costs by more than 46 percent, which will help retain those jobs until this fall. Urbana city officials have agreed to cover the remaining cost for the final months of the year.

“At this point in time, I’ve worked it out with the city to maintain all those positions until the end of the year,” Keller said.

He credited his staff for working together to cut costs and retain the two jobs.

The most significant change, Keller said, was in recall overtime costs. Those costs are incurred when, during an emergency, firefighters are required to call in off-duty staff members to man the fire station. In 2011, the fire division paid for 1,206 hours of recall overtime. But that was slashed to just less than 400 hours in 2012.

Previously, firefighters called in 0ff-duty staff members any time they had to respond to an emergency and had too few staff members on hand to cover the station. To cut those costs, Keller said firefighters no longer call for assistance until they know the emergency will keep them away from the station for an extended time. Previously, off-duty staff might be called in, and the emergency was often a false alarm.

The division paid $51,224 in recall overtime in 2011, compared to $16,007 in 2012. Some additional overtime, such as holiday hours, are negotiated and could not be easily cut, Keller said. But overall, overtime costs dipped from $107,745 in 2011 to $57,455, about a 47 percent decrease.

In addition to the cuts in overtime, Keller said one of the firefighters who was benefiting from the SAFER grant left to find other employment. Some of the grant money went unused until the position was filled, meaning there will be money left to cover the position until August.

Keller said the city will re-evaluate its budget at the end of the year to determine whether those two positions can be retained. If not, Keller said there is a chance that two other firefighters will retire at the end of the year. If no additional revenue is available, those positions will go unfilled next year.

The city might be able to apply for the SAFER grant again, but it likely would not be able to do so until next year.