Five Options on Table in Fire Department Dilemma

Bloomfield officials are examining five different options to decrease the fire department’s overtime expenses and address its depleted staff numbers after the ideas were presented at last Monday’s council meeting.

The options include hiring 12 more people to have a full roster of 90 firefighters and filling any vacancies that may arise from retirements, said Fire Chief Joseph McCarthy, who presented the alternatives at the meeting.

The others are the following: fill any vacancies that are created during this year and use overtime to have a full shift of 16 firefighters; eliminate Engine 1 and Truck 1 at the department headquarters and have 14 firefighters per shift instead; do nothing; and lastly, hire 6 people now and fill any vacancies from retirements, Chief McCarthy said.

Chief McCarthy said he preferred the last option of hiring about half a dozen people, calling it a “flat out compromise” that balances the fire department’s need for more staff and the town’s financial concerns.

Mayor Raymond McCarthy said he was attracted to the last option as well.

“It would be great to put men back on the fire trucks,” he said. “It provides us the opportunity to cut overtime dramatically. We can’t keep on absorbing that expense.”

But the mayor also said hiring of more firefighters would also be contingent on whether they could renegotiate a contract with the firefighters, calling the current contract “cost prohibitive.”

“You can’t hire them if you don’t have money,” the mayor said.

Five options are presently on the table because the fire department has accrued an excessive amount of overtime due to under-staffing issues caused by retirements and a hiring freeze since 2007, town officials said.

The fire department currently has 78 paid personnel and a volunteer company of 25, Chief McCarthy said.

The fire department, which had a 2010 budget of $10,193,600, had also received an extra $150,000 from the council for overtime expenses late last year.

The specter of going over the contract that expires at the end of this year raised the ire of the two local firefighters’ union.

Captain Steven Motzer, who is the head of the Firemen's Mutual Benevolent Association #219, which represents officers within the department, scoffed at the idea of renegotiating the contract.

“It’s sad he (Mayor McCarthy) is holding it over the firefighters’ heads,” he said.

“We gave up things, the town gave up things,” Motzer said about the agreement on the current contract that was reached a few years ago. “We fairly negotiated that and we’re not giving that up.”

Motzer said the union is willing to negotiate again when the current contract expires - but not now.

Firefighter Brian McDade, who represents the union of rank and file members, FMBA Local #19, echoed Motzer’s comments.

“We are willing to work with the town when we can. But we already have a contract ‘til the end of the year,” McDade said. “We negotiated in good faith. It’s up to them (Bloomfield officials) to manage the town.”

The department’s money and staff issues have already exacted a cost on Engine 1, which provides hoses and water at headquarters on Franklin Street. Last month, on a rolling basis whenever staffing falls below 14 firefighters. The engine needs 16 personnel to man it.

Town officials characterized the brown out as a stop gap measure before a budget is approved later this year, but Chief McCarthy said it reduces the response time of the fire department.

Since that decision, Engine 1 has been closed one-third of the time, Chief McCarthy said.