Under a new procedure being put into place Wednesday, the Jamestown Fire Department will have to operate solely out of the City Hall fire station if there are not enough lieutenants or firefighters willing to act as lieutenants to lead three companies of firefighters and fully staff the department's stations.
City officials say the new procedure is a necessary one.
''We hope this is a contingency plan that we won't have to call on - or, if we do, that it happens infrequently,'' said Mayor Sam Teresi. ''But we have to have a contingency plan in place that will allow us to operate our department and adequately protect the city if we find ourselves short of lieutenants or acting lieutenants on a particular shift.''
But Ryan Roush, president of the Jamestown Professional Firefighters Association Local 1772, said he's wary of the plan.
''Before, we've always had two outlying stations open, in addition to the City Hall station,'' Roush said. ''I guess now there's a possibility that only one outside station could be open - or even that none of them will be and we'll be operating just out of City Hall. I haven't seen this in action yet, since it doesn't go into place until next Wednesday, but I'm afraid (operating solely out of City Hall) will hinder our response times.''
DETAILS ON THE CHANGE
Beginning on Wednesday with the 7:30 a.m. shift, all city firefighters will muster at City Hall where department administrators will check to see if there are three lieutenants - the number needed to fully staff the department's stations on any given day.
One lieutenant is responsible for a company that operates out of City Hall, while two others are responsible for companies that operate out of two of the department's three outlying stations on Fairmount Avenue, Newland Avenue and Allen Street. At all times, at least one of the three outlying stations is closed as part of the department's plan to cope with reduced manpower levels.
If three lieutenants are not available, department administration will ask if any firefighters are willing to assume the responsibility of a lieutenant for that particular shift.
Firefighters who do so are paid as lieutenants for that shift. If no firefighters are willing to assume those responsibilities, the city will close the department's outlying stations and run the department out of the City Hall fire station for that shift.
The procedure will be repeated for the 5:30 p.m. shift change. The city's fire department employs 16 people who are ranked as lieutenants. A firefighter can fill a vacancy and act as lieutenant if they have five years or more of service, according to Rex Rater, the city's director of public safety. But firefighters cannot be forced to act as lieutenants during day-to-day operations, which means each firefighter can make a decision without fear of retribution, Teresi said.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Programmatic Environmental, Safety, and Health Evaluation regulations require that the department operate with a certain number of lieutenants, Rater said, as does the department's own protocol.
The new policy was crafted by Lance Hedlund, the recently retired deputy fire chief; Bill Johnston, the department's administrative battalion chief and the department's line battalion chiefs. It was forwarded to Rater who, along with Hedlund, brought the idea to Teresi's attention.
''We gave it thorough review with our legal and financial staff and held a follow-up discussion with the department's command staff,'' Teresi said. ''This idea was developed by career professionals who have been in the business as a way to cope with potential shortages in lieutenants or acting lieutenants without compromising public safety.''
City administrators, including Rater, notified union officials of the new policy on Tuesday morning.
''I'm honestly not sure of the details,'' Roush said. ''I heard a very generalized version of the new plan. They told us what their ultimate goal was, but not the details of how they're going to accomplish it.''
A NECESSARY CHANGE
Teresi, Rater and Johnston each said the new policy is a necessary one.
''Over the years, the number of firefighters who have been willing to step up and serve in the capacity of an acting lieutenant has had its peaks and valleys,'' Teresi said. ''We won't engage in idle speculation as to why that is. But we feel that we're in one of those periods where people have less interest in stepping up and acting as lieutenants and we felt it was our responsibility to have a contingency plan in place to address that.''
For years, Teresi said, the city has had in place a system that allows firefighters - particularly those who have interest in being promoted to lieutenant - to step into that role in an acting capacity.
''It has worked well for years from both a management standpoint and an operational standpoint,'' Teresi said. ''We're hopeful that members of the department will continue to step up as they have in the past and fill any officer vacancies as they arise. We want to keep all our outlying stations open all of the time, but we have to be prepared in case we find ourselves short.''
Johnston said the contingency plan was necessary because while the department has ''ample bodies,'' it sometimes does not have enough company officers, or lieutenants.
''We have sufficient staffing, we just don't always have enough people who can take command of a company,'' Johnston said. ''This is basically a contingency plan that was put into place to address that.''
City officials were forced to make the change, Rater said, due to financial and operational limitations.
''We are required to have a certain number of company officers in place before we can operate our outlying stations,'' Rater said. ''And we've got budgetary limitations, too. What we cannot continue to do is frequently call in off-duty personnel to fill any open lieutenant spots we may have. It's expensive and just not fiscally responsible to do that. We have to do the best we can and still be within the operational and budget limitations we have. It's as simple as that.''
Rater said department leaders had to make a decision that ''would not compromise public safety.''
''We had to decide on something that would put public safety first and budget second,'' he said. ''Is this contingency plan ideal? No. But we have limitations within which we must operate.''
SOME FIREFIGHTERS UPSET
Asked why firefighters are less willing to act as lieutenants in the event of a vacancy, Roush said some firefighters are upset that the department must now operate under what is called ''nine plus one'' staffing, which means nine firefighters and one supervisor are on duty at any given time - a scenario that he said limits on-scene options for incident commanders and effectively grounds the city's ladder truck during EMS calls.
While he stopped short of saying firefighters are retaliating against the city for putting the ''nine plus one'' system into place, Roush did say some firefighters felt a gentleman's agreement had been violated and were therefore no longer willing to act as lieutenants.
''To this point, we had been under '10 plus one,''' Roush said. ''Going to 'nine plus one' is a drastic change in and of itself from an operational standpoint. There was an agreement that we'd stay at '10 plus one' and people would continue to step up and act as lieutenants if there was ever a vacancy on a particular shift. There hasn't been a problem with that while we were at the '10 plus one.' It happened right along until we went to the 'nine plus one.' Some people are upset at the change to 'nine plus one' and won't step up and act as lieutenant because they don't feel that's a safe staffing level. Going to 'nine plus one' was a terrible decision.''
Roush said he had not spoken to each individual firefighter to gauge their feelings on the new policy, but opened the door for discussions with the City Council on other cost-saving measures the department could make.
''The union has proposed cost savings and will still do so,'' he said. ''If the City Council wants to sit down with us and hear our ideas, we're more than happy to put them out there. We do have ideas that can save the city money, if that's what this is all about.''
Those ideas include having the department take over EMS transports, an idea Roush said would generate additional revenue for the city, and cost-saving ''structural changes'' that he said he could not detail publicly.
In response, Teresi said the city ''has not adopted a policy to run at 'nine plus one.'''
''Most of the year, we operate above 'nine plus one' because of the way the schedule falls,'' he said. ''There might be instances in which we are below that 'nine plus one' staffing and the decision was made by the City Council to, in those instances, only call back enough firefighters to put the department at 'nine plus one.' The majority of the time, though, we're at '10 plus one' or even higher.''
Teresi also said city administrators are ''certainly willing'' to hear any cost-savings idea posed by the workforce.
''I'm a strong believer that while you may not be able to implement every idea that comes from the workforce at the moment it's brought forward, there's great value in the feedback and input provided to you by people who are out there providing the services,'' he said. ''Even though ideas might not be applicable right then, they might be useful down the road as circumstances change.''
NO DIFFERENCE TO PUBLIC
Rater and Johnston both said the public would see ''little to no'' difference in the way fire services are delivered.
''Honestly, I think the only change the public is going to see is a couple extra pieces of fire equipment at City Hall during shift changes,'' Rater said. ''The City Hall station is located in the heart of the city to provide for the best response.''
''We're still going to be out there responding to calls and doing everything that we're doing now,'' Johnston said. ''Sometimes, stations will be left unmanned - but that happens now when an outlying station is closed on a particular day because of our schedule, or when we're out training or responding to a call. I don't think the taxpayers are going to see a significant change at all.''