By James Burger
The Bakersfield Californian
KERN COUNTY, Calif. — Supervisors approved a new firefighter academy Tuesday in an effort to train new employees before an annual wave of retirements hits in March.
But the decision turns Kern County Fire Department hiring traditions head-over-heels.
And it leaves some want-to-be firefighters like Andrew Stuebbe, whose name has lingered on a job list for more than a year, completely out of the loop.
Supervisors approved the academy as part of the consent agenda, a list of routine items approved with one vote.
But deciding to approve the academy has not been routine.
Kern County Fire Chief Nick Dunn asked for $2.3 million for an academy during budget hearings in June and for $1.2 million for an academy on Sept. 29.
Both times he was told to go back and find a way to cut costs.
The academy approved Tuesday will cost the county only $400,000 — which Dunn will fund with cash pulled from his own budget.
County coffers will realize the sharp savings by reworking fire department hiring practices.
County personnel staff will clear a list of top candidates for the firefighter jobs and pull a new “certified” list using new criteria.
Tops on the list of new criteria is the need for every candidate to have completed generic “Firefighter 1" training through a community college or other certified program.
Candidates with that basic training don’t have to be trained while earning county wages — they can be put through a couple months of field training and hired into an open job in March.
Stuebbe, the 35th person on the firefighter eligibility list, doesn’t have that training.
He won’t make the cut for the new academy even though his name would have been on the list under the old rules.
On Tuesday, Stuebbe came to the board meeting to put a face to the names of people who will be impacted by the county’s decision.
Stuebbe said he was told the eligibility list would be good for two years. So he calculated that, with regular academies that were the rule in better budget times, he would be certain to get a job.
Stuebbe, a rodeo bull rider, quit the Professional Bull Riders tour to come back to Kern County and get the firefighter job.
“I’ve put my life on hold for a year-and-a-half,” he said. “I relied on the system and the word the county gave me that the list was going to be good for two years.”
Stuebbe said he thought about taking classes for the Firefighter 1 certification.
But Kern County Fire academies were scheduled to start in the middle of the community college semester and he didn’t want to quit on school halfway through.
But academies kept getting put off and now, Stuebbe’s lack of a certificate takes him out of the running for the job.
Will he go get the certificate and try again?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve already invested a lot for no return doing everything they asked me to do.”
Dunn said field training for the new firefighters would begin in January.
Copyright 2009 The Bakersfield Californian