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Questions
regarding proposed fire department reductions
Patrick
Barga
Ms.
Myers,
Please
distribute this message to the members of City Council. Thank
you.
Respectfully,
Patrick
Barga
Members
of Greenville City Council,
First
of all, let me express my thanks for City Council’s recent approval of
the
re-zoning request on behalf of Trilogy Health Services.
Hopefully, this
care center will be an asset to our community for many years to
come. I
believe that this re-evaluation is very significant as it demonstrates
that the
council is willing to accept valid input from the community and respond
to the
will of the people.
I
attended the Finance Committee meeting of 08/16/12, where attendees
were
advised that questions for the committee could be submitted via e-mail
to the
City Auditor. The following are my current questions and
comments
regarding the proposed reductions within the Fire Department:
• The proposed savings of
$510,991, including
the Police Department secretary and City Building custodian, could be
somewhat
misleading as it does not appear to take into consideration any
potential new
costs that may be associated with these personnel reductions.
It
seems very likely that with reduced on-duty personnel, many emergency
responses
will require the call-in of off-duty personnel, resulting in increased
costs
for overtime.
What
is the cost of re-starting a Fire Department Auxiliary? New
gear/equipment? Will training by full-time firefighters be
done during
their normal duty hours or will it be an additional cost?
Unemployment
compensation and other costs associated with the terminations within a
reduction in force.
• Elimination of the
position of Assistant Fire
Chief
I
understand that some of this may not be discussed publicly.
The committee
proposal is not really clear on the details of this change.
Is the
current Assistant Chief to be one of those terminated or will he be
replacing
one of the existing Captains, resulting in that Captain replacing a
Lieutenant,
etc.? As I understand things, the Assistant is not a member
of the local
union. What challenges does this present?
It
appeared to me during the meeting that the members of the Finance
Committee
were somewhat surprised when presented with the fact that the Assistant
Fire
Chief is currently the only member of the department that is trained
and
certified to perform building plan reviews and fire protection system
inspections. What is the potential cost of dealing with this
situation?
• Are there any potential
pending retirements
within the next year that would make some or all of these reductions
unnecessary?
• I feel that the citizens
of Greenville
deserve a clear explanation of the TRUE savings associated with these
potential
reductions, not just the superficial sub-total of salaries plus
benefits for
the positions eliminated. I believe that it would be shameful
for the
city to make compromises in citizen safety, not to mention creating
life-changing events for those affected, only to find out later on that
the
actual savings were not nearly what had been expected.
• I also feel that there
should be a discussion
of what has transpired since the passage of the city’s most recent tax
levy
several years ago, one that was passed in order to preserve the
existing levels
of Police and Fire protection.
• There has been some
discussion about a Joint
Fire District, combining the city and township firefighting
resources. In
my opinion, this is a total waste of time unless it also includes the
Greenville Township Rescue. If this proposal has a familiar
ring, this is
the way almost every other city in our area with paid firefighters and
paid
emergency rescue services operates. There is no more
efficient approach
than to have one emergency service, staffed with personnel trained as
firefighters and EMTs.
Thank
you for your consideration,
Patrick
L. Barga
Greenville
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