Fire union leaders throughout Massachusetts are elevating the alarm over what they are saying is a reluctance from municipal officers to adequately fund their departments, risking the security of firefighters and the communities they serve.
Smoke is constructing in Fairhaven as the hearth union within the small South Coast city claims leaders there are threatening to put off two not too long ago employed firefighters if an upcoming proposition 2.5 override fails.
Residents can be requested to vote on a finances that features funding for the addition of 4 firefighters to an understaffed hearth division, however union President Kevin Gonsalves instructed the Herald there’s extra behind the request than the neighborhood is aware of.
Gonsalves and different union representatives, in a launch final week, mentioned city officers agreed in January to the hiring of 4 extra firefighters, with out elevating issues about funding.
The 4 chosen candidates have accepted the roles and are within the means of being onboarded, Gonsalves mentioned. Two of the positions are being coated by a rise in ambulance fund receipts, whereas the city is funding the 2 others, he mentioned.
The battle is coming at a time when the Fairhaven Fire Department is working 4 teams of simply six firefighters, effectively under the urged degree of 14 per crew, in line with a advice made final yr by the International Association of Fire Fighters.
“Playing politics with firefighters isn’t dangerous — it’s deadly,” Gonsalves mentioned Saturday. “Something is going to happen and then all of a sudden people will be up in arms, asking ‘How could we have fixed this?’ It’s going to be too late at that point.”
Stasia Powers, chairwoman of the Fairhaven Select Board, in an e mail Saturday declined to make clear whether or not the city is trying to reduce the 2 current hires, and whether it is, why such a transfer is required.
The Select Board has not set a date for the override election, Powers mentioned, including will probably be held someday earlier than July 1, the beginning of subsequent fiscal yr.
“We do not currently have a signed agreement with the Fairhaven Fire Fighters Union,” she mentioned. “Our goal is, and has been, to increase staffing in a fiscally responsible way. As we are still in negotiations with the union, that is all I can say.”
The city, of roughly 16,000 folks, is in search of a $9 million finances for public security, which might improve present funding by almost $800,000, in line with a doc highlighting the proposed finances.
A handful of Fairhaven firefighters final week joined dozens others from different South Coast departments in battling an enormous blaze at an condominium constructing in New Bedford. Two occupants died and 5 others have been hospitalized.
Providing mutual assist meant the Fairhaven hearth chief needed to keep again on the city’s hearth station to observe the division’s dispatch, and off-duty firefighters have been referred to as for extra protection, Gonsalves mentioned.
“We don’t get paid 24 hours a day seven days a week to stand by because there may be an incident,” he mentioned. “Relying on off-duty personnel to staff your fire department is, in my opinion, asinine.”
Leah Barrault, managing companion of Milton-based regulation agency Barrault and Associates, which represents the Fairhaven hearth union, mentioned Gonsalves’ division is much from the one one dealing with staffing challenges.
“Many towns will tell you that they have an inability to pay for additional fire staffing,” Barrault mentioned in an e mail. “However, it is instead an unwillingness, not an inability to pay. … The public is being duped into believing they are safe.”
The staffing scenario in Manchester-By-The-Sea has gotten so dire that the city administrator has floated the concept of coaching cops to change into volunteer firefighters. Residents within the small Cape Ann coastal city will vote at a city assembly Monday on a supplemental finances that permits extra additional time funding so an ample degree of firefighters on obligation could be restored.
“As a department, it has obviously put the guys through a lot of turmoil. Everyone has continued to be kind of on edge,” hearth union vice chairman Bill Kenyon mentioned in an interview Saturday.
Fall River hearth union president Jason Burns mentioned his division has round 190 firefighters, a degree he referred to as advantageous however hopes to see develop additional. The division doesn’t depend on mutual assist as a lot as different municipalities throughout Bristol County and the Cape and Islands, a area he focuses on as vice chairman of District 8 for the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts.
“They struggle with manpower, but theirs is different, it’s probably more scary,” Burns mentioned. “We are all struggling.”
In addition to an absence of funding, many hearth departments are additionally grappling with an elevated name quantity as increasingly more individuals are fleeing the state’s city areas and shifting into the suburbs, PFFM President Rich MacKinnon Jr. mentioned.
MacKinnon sees some elected officers reluctant to use for federal grants that may assist improve hearth staffing ranges as a result of “they know they’ll have to properly budget moving into the future.”
“A lot of towns and cities will say ‘Well, if we get into a situation, we’ll just rely on our mutual aid agreements,’” he mentioned. “You can’t rely on mutual aid anymore because they are going through the same staffing issues and lack of staffing that Fairhaven is going through.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”