By Jessica A. York
Vallejo Times Herald (California)
VALLEJO, Calif. — In an attempt to combat the deflating public safety ranks, Vallejo city management is working to shore up its training programs.
The city’s trip to federal bankruptcy court this year has taken a toll on the employee rosters. As employees continue to look to other agencies for potentially more secure jobs or consider early retirement, Vallejo’s department heads are faced with the task of trying to draw in new blood.
Vallejo Fire Department management may be re-instituting a firefighter-trainee program, last operational in 2004. Much like the police cadet program, the fire trainee program will provide potential employees with a tie to the city. The department also receives extra bodies for non-emergency tasks, Fire Chief Russ Sherman said.
The concept has been shelved at least until the city’s February budget update, to allow further fleshing out of that program, according to city staff reports.
The priority, Sherman said, is the Fire Training Academy, which would cost an estimated $250,000 to restart. That program would go hand-in-hand with recruiting new fire employees, Sherman said. The fire academy is for those hired by the department and who need to learn Vallejo’s equipment and other skills beyond the basic certification, Sherman said.
Vallejo last hired a firefighter in 2003.
The fire academy, under city staff’s current proposal, would have an abbreviated training period. City and fire union leaders are in negotiations over the change to the academy, which is scheduled to start in February, Sherman said.
“We sent out letters of interest to make sure we have an applicant pool that would be interested in coming to Vallejo in the financial situation that the city is in,” Sherman said. “We’ve got a good response.”
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