Copyright 2006 The Durham Herald Co.
By BRIANNE DOPART
The Herald-Sun (North Carolina)
The Durham Fire Department won’t be receiving money for four new assistant fire chief positions, despite requests from Interim Fire Chief Bruce Pagan for help beefing up the ranks.
The $289,436 request, submitted to City Manager Patrick Baker, called for each of the four new assistant fire chiefs to be paid $65,000 per year. It was listed among “unfunded items” when the department presented its budget to City Council on May 24.
Currently the department’s top position — chief — is bolstered by three second-tier positions: fire services administrator, deputy fire chief and fire marshal. Pagan filled the deputy chief position before being named interim chief.
Ten battalion chiefs, nine of whom are in command of the city’s 265 full-time firefighters, serve under the deputy chief.
The assistant chief position was thought of as a means of distributing leadership in the department a little more evenly, Baker said.
“I asked all the department heads to request everything they feel they need to be where they want to be, recognizing that I can’t possibly afford all that,” Baker said Wednesday.
Baker also asked the department heads to list “major challenges” to their department. Pagan listed “providing fire department services to growing community” as one of his five greatest obstacles his department faces.
The intent, Baker said, was to learn what each department needs or believes they need, and then to see if he could help the department to come up with a logical means of filling the need.
For instance, Baker said, if a department head requested an item that the city manager felt could be achieved without using city funds, the item went unfunded. So when Pagan brought up the idea of four new assistant fire chiefs, Baker said he saw a good opportunity for a low-cost change.
“I wasn’t going to pay [for the four new positions] but I didn’t have an issue with him reshuffling the deck, if you will.”
So when Pagan asked for four new positions, Baker suggested rather than creating positions, the department should promote from within and move some positions around. Some funds, he said, would be made available to help Pagan give promoted employees raises.
Pagan could not be reached directly for comment but opted to speak through Fire Department spokeswoman Pamela Majette.
“Due to the growth they’re experiencing in the city, we need to grow our department,” Majette said, adding Pagan knew there was “an extremely small chance, almost a zilch chance, that those positions would be funded.”
Beverly Thompson added that the Fire Department still may have a chance of getting the funding in the future.
"[Baker] decided not to pursue [those positions] but that’s not say it’s not going to come back,” she said.