By Don Spatz
The Reading Eagle
READING, Pa. — Cutting $3 million out of the Reading Fire Bureau’s budget next year will require major cutbacks in the way the city responds to fires and ambulance calls, a worried Fire Chief William H. Rehr III said Thursday.
The expected layoffs of 16 firefighters and seven paramedics would mean one of the three ambulances will go out of service, as well as several of the 11 firetrucks now operating around the clock, including three of the four ladder trucks, he said.
It would mean ambulance response times could double or triple. The city would have to end standby ambulance service for the Reading Phillies, scholastic football games and events at the Sovereign Center, and stop providing mutual aid to surrounding municipalities even as it depends more on those outlying companies for help in the city.
It also would mean the end of dispatching EMT-trained firefighters along with the paramedics to medical calls. The firefighters usually respond first, usually within four minutes, because firehouses are spread around the city and the ambulances are based downtown.
Even as the city tries to balance the budget as required by law, its every move is mired within confl icting layoff laws, contract obligations and the Fire Diversity Board.
Compounding the confusion is that in two weeks the city will apply for a $2.5 million federal stimulus grant for the fire bureau that could make most of the problems go away, but won’t know until spring if it will get it.
In the meantime, Rehr worries that the city won’t be well protected and that firefighters could get hurt.
“Our guys will be able to handle run-of-the-mill stuff,” he said. “But a nighttime, down-and-dirty fire ... when it blows out the front window and it’s working its way up and down the front porches ... then we’re in trouble. Our resources will be overloaded.”
With fewer trucks, a second alarm could mean there will be only one more truck with two more firefighters available, he said.
Meanwhile, safety rules require at least four firefighters at a fire scene — two inside and two outside. The city does that by sending at least two engines to each call, each with two fi refi ghters.
That’s not a problem under current conditions, but next year when fewer trucks are available, it may take minutes more for that second truck to reach the fire, he said.
What worries Rehr is what the first two fi refi ghters could do, or would do, until the second two get to the scene. The rules require that they not enter a building — either with a hose or to make a rescue — until the others arrive.
But, he asks, if somebody’s trapped, who would wait?
And what if the firefighters get in trouble and have no backups?
Facing a $15 million budget shortfall, city Managing Director Ryan P. Hottenstein and Finance Director Carl Gefen months ago ordered each department to cut specific union to gain concessions — the union has made none — and the administration wants to talk with City Council first on what options are available.
That session is slated for Saturday morning, when council also will talk with Rehr and police Chief William M. Heim.
In Rehr’s case, the order was to cut about $2 million from fire suppression, and $1 million from the ambulance service.
Hottenstein declined to comment on Rehr’s concerns, except to say the city still is talking with the firefighters.
Mayor Tom McMahon’s proposed budget includes the layoffs, but the final budget numbers are up to council when it approves a 2010 budget, assuming McMahon doesn’t veto it.
Hottenstein said that once the final budget is passed, the city will know the number of layoffs needed.
Keith J. Eschleman, president of the firefighters union, said his problem is that the city isn’t sharing any details with the firefighters.
“They don’t know what they’re doing, where they’re doing it from and how they’re going to do it,” he said. “Hopefully, the consequences of their actions do not jeopardize public safety.”
But Rehr said the numbers he was given mean he has to cut seven paramedics and 16 firefighters, and figure out what the city can do, and can’t do, with the rest.
The first to go is the first-responder system. If the EMT-trained firefighters respond to a medical call, but the two city ambulances are tied up at a local hospital, the EMTs have to baby-sit the victim until an ambulance gets there, he said.
“We can’t pull them off for a fire; that’s abandoning the patient, and that’s grounds for malpractice,” he said.
The solution: Don’t send them in the first place.
Second to go are the mutual-aid agreements with the West Reading and Kenhorst fire companies.
“For the most part, we’ll have to stop mutual aid,” he said. “Will that be reciprocal? I don’t know yet.”
On the ambulance side, the city handles 12,000 calls a year or 4,000 calls per ambulance — already over the 3,500-call-per-ambulance national standard. Take out an ambulance, and the callsper-ambulance rise.
“We can’t do 6,000 calls per ambulance,” Rehr said.
He noted the EMS Council has already warned the city that it has what it calls grave concerns about the city’s ability to handle the call volume with two ambulances.
So will the surrounding services be asked to take an extra 4,000 city calls?
“The surrounding community ambulance services have said they’d have difficulty absorbing city calls, and they can’t afford adding staff to do that,” Rehr said. “Mutual aid is a fragile arrangement. But it (asking for help) will happen more often as we cut fi re and EMS.
“We’re going to expect others to do our work.”
Copyright 2009 Reading Eagle