By Bethany Rodgers
The Frederick News-Post, Md.
FREDERICK COUNTY, Md. — The incoming chief of the county’s fire and rescue services made her first big move more than a week before her official start date, as commissioners Thursday approved her plan to shake up the system’s top brass.
The restructuring, which will bring several new faces to the system and result in one departure, is part of an ongoing effort to integrate the volunteer and career wings of the service.
“I think that Frederick County has great possibility and potential to become the best combination service in the country,” said Denise Pouget, who last month was chosen as the county’s new director of fire and rescue services. “But we need an overall view. We need people to know what the direction is.”
The changes, effective Thursday, will come with a price tag of $215,000 in fiscal 2014, according to the county. But county commissioners hope the investment will lead to future savings, Commissioners President Blaine Young said.
The restructuring is part of ongoing efforts to introduce a global perspective to an emergency services system that in the past had allowed individual stations more free rein. For instance, commissioners beefed up the role of the division director early this year as they sought to centralize authority.
Young said Pouget brought her reorganization plan before commissioners in a closed session Thursday morning, and the county board unanimously supported it. If the commissioners expect Pouget to make improvements, they have to let her choose her leadership team, Young said.
“You can’t ask someone to make dinner if you don’t allow them to go grocery shopping,” he said Thursday while announcing the reorganization.
Commissioner David Gray was absent from the meeting.
Two merit positions, the bureau chief of operations and bureau chief of administrative services, will give way to two chief-appointed positions. Pouget has picked Max Allen Keyser for the new role of deputy chief of operations and Michael Grierson for the new post of deputy chief of finance and logistics. Each man will be paid $110,000 annually, according to the county.
Pouget knows both Keyser and Grierson from Montgomery County’s fire and rescue system, where she served for 27 years.
Doug Brown, who had been the bureau chief of operations and recently served as the acting division director, will move into the new position of community services liaison.
Steve Leatherman, now the bureau chief of administrative services, will shift to the post of finance and logistics administrator.
With the transitions, Brown’s pay will decrease by $7,221 to $118,428 per year, while Leatherman will see no change to his $97,111 annual salary.
The plan also establishes a temporary position for a fire planner, who will support the chief as she develops short- and long-range goals and proposals for the service. John North, a fire services professional, will occupy the part-time post for about four months at an hourly rate of $75.
The changes will do away with the $89,490-per-year position now held by Doug Orner, director of volunteer fire and rescue services. The chief will become the primary go-to person for volunteer personnel.
While the leader of the county’s career firefighters union said the changes seemed like a positive move, John Zimmerman, president of the Frederick County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association, was not pleased to hear of Orner’s departure.
“I don’t think people realize how much work Doug Orner did for the volunteer organization,” he said. “Who do the volunteers go to now?”
Zimmerman said he had not been consulted on the changes made Thursday.
But Pouget, who officially begins her new job July 22, believes putting the chief in direct communication with the volunteers will bring greater unity to the system. She said she plans to spend time and even stay overnight at various stations as she familiarizes herself with her new role and the county.
“I don’t want to be perceived as someone you can’t get to. I want to be somebody you go to directly,” she said.
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(c)2013 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.)
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