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 (Taunton-AP) -- The Taunton Fire Department is being criticized for paying nine firefighters 14-hundred dollars in overtime to pick up their layoff notices over the weekend. Word of the O-T paid on Saturday comes as Taunton struggles with a six-point-eight (m)
million dollar budget deficit. On July first, 164 city workers are scheduled to be laid off.
   Acting Fire Chief Leman Padelford maintains paying the overtime was the only way to make sure the nine firefighters got their pink slips before midnight Saturday. Each of the nine firefighters were
40 dollars per hour for a minimum of four hours as required by the current contract.
   But City Councilor Thomas Hoye Junior tells The Enterprise of Brockton that the decision to pay overtime was a poor one given the current budget crisis.
   Asked why he didn't bring the pink slips to the laid-off firefighters, Padelford said he was not about to go banging on people's doors after 10 p-m.