By Ray Lamont
The Gloucester Daily Times
GLOUCESTER, Mass. — A late-season shortage of lifeguards at Gloucester’s beaches has led the city’s Department of Public Works to hire city firefighters and paramedics to supplement the beach staff through what amount to off-duty safety details.
But DPW officials say the $45-an-hour cost for an off-duty firefighter on a detail -- compared with the lifeguards’ average $11 hourly wages -- isn’t sinking that department’s recreation budget. And fire Chief Eric Smith said the added outside work isn’t affecting fire coverage or other services within his department, which is still short-handed due to a run of firefighter injuries.
Public Works Director Mike Hale said that, while the department -- which operates the city’s beaches and their parking lots -- has used a similar tactic in the past, this year’s lifeguard shortage became more acute because the city had fewer guards to start with.
“We’d already been posting no lifeguards at Plum Cove and at Niles Beach (since the beginning of August),” Hale said, “and as it came time for some to get ready to go back to college, we knew we’d be in trouble. It’s just a matter of supplementing the lifeguards for public safety.”
Mark Cole, the assistant DPW chief who heads the department’s beach operations, said that while the city usually hires between 30 and 35 lifeguards for the summer -- at starting wages of $10 an hour with 50-cent per hour hikes each returning year -- this summer’s roster topped out at 29.
“We had a very difficult time hiring, and we’ve been short all summer,” he said, meaning the mid- to late-August resignations have taken a deeper toll.
Cole said he met with the fire department at the beginning of August and mapped plans to hire firefighters/EMTs at the $45 hourly rate for eight-hour shifts, or for $360 per shift. He added that the department has, since Aug. 7, been bringing on one EMT each for Good Harbor Beach and Wingaersheek Beach Mondays through Thursdays, with two EMTs per location for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
He said the department has spent about $20,000 on the details to date, and anticipates spending another $13,000 to $15,000 by the end of Labor Day weekend. But he said the department should be able to cover the costs within its budget, largely due to the lifeguard coverage being understaffed throughout the summer.
Smith, meanwhile, said the detail work hasn’t posed any new issues for his department despite the fire department still being down an average of eight firefighters throughout most of the year through injury and other absences.
Smith noted that any detail work -- including the DPW beach coverage -- has come when the individual firefighters have been off-duty. He added that, while he has tapped into the department’s $100,000 budget for overtime in the first two months of the new fiscal year, the beach coverage is not affecting his department’s budget one way or another.
Smith said he expects to have some firefighters returning from injury absences shortly -- and is especially waiting to see whether the state’s Public Employees’ Retirement Commission will approve allowing at least some of those who have been out for disability retirements.
“That would let us rehire for those positions,” Smith said, noting that the current absence rate -- including injuries and vacations -- has left the department’s 72-firefighter roster more than 10 percent short.
He emphasized, however, that the shortfalls will not spur a renewed series of outlying fire station closures that city residents have seen in the past.
“That’s not an option as far as I’m concerned,” he said, “That’s not even on the board.”
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(c)2015 the Gloucester Daily Times (Gloucester, Mass.)
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