Fire shift manning levels dip with budget woes
By Jeff Gallatin
North Olmsted
Published Jan. 21, 2009

Tight economic conditions continue to put a damper on city fire department staffing.

Fire Chief Tom Klecan said the department’s minimum staffing level has gone down to nine per shift for the two fire stations with a strong possiblity that many shifts will go down to eight at times in the summer with vacations and when someone calls off. Klecan went over the issue at the City Council Safety Committee meeting Jan. 13. Committee Chairman Kevin Kearney had called the session to have Klecan and his Police department counterpart Wayne Wozniak discuss how they were handling staffing in lieu of having five members each laid off at the beginning of January to help the city deal with a projected budget shortfall of close to $2 million.

Klecan said his department is dealing with changes as best as possible. In addition to the layoffs, the position of assistant Fire Chief was laid off causing Todd Kirkpatrick to return to the ranks of the firefighters. Klecan said the department would prefer having the staffing level at ten but added he sees no way of doing that right now.

“Do I want the staffing at nine or lower? No absolutely not,” he said. “But, the economic conditions pretty much dictate that’s where we have to be right now.”

He said the department would keep five shift firefighters at Station 1 to man both an engine and EMS squad. He said Station 2 would keep three or four staff members on hand to man an EMS squad. He acknowledged that when it only has three members that Station 2 could be empty at times when the squad goes out from the second station.

“We don’t like these levels but again we don’t have a lot of options at this time,” he said.

Klecan also said the loss of Kirkpatrick has added to his and the four captians various duties.

Fire union officials and department officers all said the change in staffing causes potential safety issues.

“It’s going to affect the safety of people in the community and of the firefighters,” said Union President Dave Boatman. “It’s not good having those lower levels because there will times when there are multiple runs.”

Captain Mike Ciarrone, one of the senior officers, noted that the department has one of the fastest response times in all of Cuyahoga County. He said lower staffing levels jeopardize that standing and overall safety.

City administration and council officials said they are not happy with the change either but see little options until economic conditions improve.

“It’s a terrible economic situation,” said Mayor Thomas O’Grady about the levels. “That’s why we have to get other economic safeguards in place before we have other cutbacks which will have a major impact on safety in the city.”

O’Grady has said council needs to pass some kind of temporary change in the tax credit for city residents who work outside the city to stop further layoffs. Council rejected his initial four-year, 50 percent cut plan. O’Grady has since introduced a new plan for two years with a cut of 50 percent the first year and 25 the second. He also reiterated that the city would call back fire and police officers if economic conditions allow it.

“We want to bring them back, make no mistake about it,” O’Grady said.

Council members said the city has to continue to try and deal with the situation.

“We don’t like having things this way but the administration has basically said this is where we stand right now,” said Finance Committee Chairman Michael Gareau Jr.

Kearney said he wanted the matter discussed.

“That’s why I called the meeting, so people could talk about it and hopefully understand a little better,” he said. “We don’t like this situation and we’ll continue to work on it.”