By Steve Brandt
The Star Tribune
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The city agreed in 2005 to certain minimum staffing levels, but fire officials say the department’s budget is $3.5 million short of being able to provide them.
A ticklish debate opened on Tuesday at Minneapolis City Hall over how much fire and emergency medical protection the city can afford.
Fire Chief Alex Jackson told the City Council that some days, given budget cuts his department has absorbed, he can’t afford to have the minimum staffing of firefighters to which the city agreed in 2005. Those cuts will pare another 32 firefighters by year’s end.
The city’s budget cutting is hitting departments like fire and police because they’re largely supported by property taxes and state aid, unlike other city operations, such as inspections or water, that charge fees.
It’s a debate that’s playing out across Minnesota, as cities absorb state aid cuts that have prompted some of them to cut training budgets for the volunteer departments that protect much of the state. For full-time fire departments, staff cuts are looming, according to Shane Schmidt of Alexandria, president of the Minnesota State Fire Department Association.
In Minneapolis, only four of the city’s 19 pumper engines carry four-person crews, mostly in the most fire-prone central neighborhoods. Three-person crews ride the rest. According to federally funded research released last year, four firefighters can work 25 percent faster than three.
Only 94 per shift
The City Council agreed to minimum staffing of 96 people per shift in 2005. The department averages more than that, but when too many employees are on leave or injured, Jackson told the council, he hires only enough firefighters on overtime to staff at 94 per shift.
Due to budget cuts enacted beginning in 2009, there’s now a gap of about $3.5 million annually between the department’s budget and what it needs to meet the staffing minimum. The department predicted before the 2011 budget was adopted that further cuts would mean reducing staffing to 92 per shift. That would mean the department would less often meet the national standards of responding to an emergency in five minutes and to a building fire with 14 firefighters in nine minutes.
Firefighters also are concerned that working with smaller crews increases the risk of injury. The department first shifted to three-person crews in the 1980s. Jackson said after appearing before a joint session of the council’s money and public safety committees that further cuts in staffing would mean that either more rigs operate with three firefighters or a rig is mothballed.
Fewer fires
Meanwhile, the department is responding to fewer fires and more medical calls. The number of fires has dropped by about one-third since 2002, and about half of reported fires don’t involve buildings.
Although the council directed that firefighter ranks be cut starting in 2010, it gave the department $3 million in onetime money to tide it over two years with the hope that attrition could reduce ranks without layoffs. But attrition has tapered in the last few years as pension benefits were cut in a city-initiated court fight and the economy ate into retirement savings. Only 12 firefighters left last year, mostly lured by onetime incentives, and only four are sure to leave this year, with one firefighter getting a medical retirement and three hitting the mandatory retirement age. That leaves the 23 recruits added in 2008 vulnerable to being laid off.
The association’s Schmidt said that full-time departments “obviously [are] going to cut more on the staffing side. It’s going to put more wear and tear on those that remain.”
Cuts in firefighting could potentially affect the city’s fire-insurance industry rating and premiums.
The city was last rated in 2003 as budget cuts began. It was rated of 3 on a scale of 10; that rating, shared by 40 other Minnesota cities, was the highest given in the state.
In the federal study on crew size, the Department of Commerce found that three-person crews took longer to stretch hoses, start water on a fire, deploy ladders and ventilation, and search for people.
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