By Lance Reynolds
Boston Herald
MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, Mass. — Firefighters in a small North Shore town are shooting back an idea from the town administrator that police officers undertake volunteer fire training to help the department through staffing shortages, a problem rattling small communities nationwide.
The Manchester-by-the-Sea Fire Department has been without a volunteer crew since last summer, leaving an understaffed full-time workforce which has sparked the need for creative solutions, Town Administrator Greg FederspIel told the Herald on Friday.
The idea also includes public works employees and residents. Those who sign on as a volunteer would supplement full-time firefighters at large-scale incidents, acting in similar fashion as when the department receives mutual aid from other towns, Federspiel said.
Federspiel’s proposal has caught hot smoke from the fire union which filed a labor complaint this week against the town for considering such an idea.
Union President Bob Cavender, in an interview with the Herald, expressed concern over the “huge lag time in getting a police officer up to speed to even be credentialed” to respond to a working fire. The police department, he said, is also dealing with shortages.
“The police department is a fellow brother in a public safety goal,” Cavender said. “As professional firefighters, it is a little insulting and a little off the beaten path. Nobody went to our union or over this.”
The department has just 11 full-time certified firefighters, two of which have yet to go to the fire academy to gain certification, union Vice President Bill Kenyon said. The town last July disbanded the department’s volunteer crew as its roster dwindled to just three active members, who were paid per call, he said.
Manchester-by-the-Sea, a coastal town on Cape Ann, has a rough population of just over 5,400.
Currently, one of the department’s four squads — manned by one lieutenant and two firefighters — is down to just two members, making it nearly impossible to guarantee safety for all at a fire scene or car crash, Kenyon said.
“It is disappointing the stance that the town has taken on this,” he said. “It’s really concerning in terms of what the future holds. I don’t know when I go in for the next shift what’s going to happen.”
To help overcome challenges, the department had been backfilling vacancies to ensure it stayed at three firefighters per shift, using overtime to do so at the chief’s discretion, Cavender said. That practice came to a halt last week at Federspiel’s request, according to a letter the union released this week.
By early January, the department had spent $100,000 more in overtime than the budgeted $125,000 for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, Federspiel said. Voters at a town meeting in April will decide whether they approve a supplemental budget that allows more overtime funding and for the three-firefighters-on-duty level to be restored, he said.
“My problem is I can’t spend money that the voters haven’t approved,” Federspiel said. “We needed to take a step back and say, ‘Wait a minute. What’s going on here?’”
The union says it feels like the town is silencing its voice. Federspiel told the department last week it had to put down a sign that alerted residents the understaffing forced an engine out of service.
“Our only goal was to keep the public informed of the situation so they know because it directly affects them,” Kenyon said.
In the past, there never had been a sign indicating staffing levels outside the fire department, Federspiel told the Herald, adding that the union didn’t seek permission to put it up from the Select Board.
The union on Wednesday filed charges against the town with the state Department of Labor and Milton-based law firm Barrault and Associates, LLC. The charges allege the town’s actions violate a handful of state laws.
“The town is just not really doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” attorney Ally Presskeicher said. “They are putting the community at risk. It’s really not something that the union and firefighters in general can sit back and allow to happen.”
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