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Memo T0: Kevin Carruth, City Manager From: Ronnie Grooms, Fire Chief Date: October 23, 2008 Subject: Station and Staffing Realignment The exodus of personnel, employee and community safety, our capability in providing service, and the other issues my Staff Officers and I discussed with you back in May (during our pre-budget meetings) have not changed. Unfortunately the City could not, at least in some way, assist us in addressing these issues during this past budget. Nevertheless, we are where we are and these concerns and issues still haunt us. First, as we stated in our meeting this morning, the Fire Department has lost a total of 34 firefighters since July of 2004. This represents an overall turnover rate that exceeds 66%. As we also emphasized to you, 13 of those firefighters who left, did so specifically to reduce the stress in their life and for better benefits and salaries in other fire departments; constituting more than a 25% turnover rate just to other city fire departments. In essence, we have been forced to replace seasoned veterans with an accumulative 516 years of experience and tenure with raw recruits with less than 26 years of experience and tenure. Second, when a shift is at full staffing, it employees 16 firefighters with a minimum staffing of 12 firefighters, with at least 2 firefighters scheduled off-duty to accommodate leave allowances. Unfortunately for several years now, we have not been at full staffing as the rate of firefighter exodus has exceeded our ability to rehire, but we are continuing to work to fill those positions. Currently, the engine companies at Stations 2, 3, and 4 are staffed with 2 firefighters while Station No. 1 has 2 people assigned to Rescue-1, 3 people assigned to Engine-l, and the Deputy Chief. There are occasions, when at full staffing capacity, we may have a couple of firefighters above the 12 minimal. On those occasions we assign them to substation duty so as to increase the engine company staffing. We would be most remiss if we do not do all within our power to provide for the SAFETY of our employees and the community and address these issues. Therefore, in order to provide the most optimum opportunity for protecting and properly training these young and inexperienced recruits while still providing for the SAFETY of our community, we propose implementing the following Temporary Station and Staffing Realignment Plan: 1. All FD personnel from Fire Station No. 2 will be removed and reassigned to the other remaining (3) stations. 2. Fire Response District 2 will be split between Fire Response Districts 1 and 4(Paris Dispatch will receive new Fire Response District maps). 3. Engine-2 will be relocated to Fire Station No. 1. 4. Our Probationary Firefighters (PF's) will be equally reassigned so as to maximize safety and training capabilities. . (10037i _ . , . T. . . T