CUYAHOGA FALLS: Falls City Council is considering legislation that would cap the number of firefighters at the current level.
The move comes as council mulls the results of an assessment that recommends the hiring of a dozen additional firefighters.
Illinois-based McGrath Consulting Group has completed a 248-page report that found among other things “many more things right about the Cuyahoga Falls Fire Department than wrong.”
The study came about after a difference of opinion between the administration and union firefighters over required staffing in the department.
The ordinance, which will be discussed after council’s August break, calls for a cap of 49 firefighter/paramedics and 19 lieutenants to staff five stations.
The consultants also recommended an end to the practice of closing Fire Station No. 5 when staffing levels are low.
Having sufficient personnel at a fire and improving response times were two reasons McGrath gave for adding another 12 firefighters.
The hirings would add $870,000 in annual expenditures to an already tight budget.
Chief Paul Moledor said he cannot discuss personnel issues in depth because of the pending legislation and upcoming contract negotiations.
He did say the department does not need a sixth station — adding only about 25 percent of calls are fire related.
When there is a need for more than 16 firefighters at a fire, he said, the department calls for mutual aid.
“Mutual aid is our sixth station,” he said.
Four new firefighters were hired in 2012.
Council President Don Walters said there could be a point where safety versus personnel comes into play.
“At that point in time, I will come to council and say, ‘Time out, we need to [hire] more,’ ” Moledor said. “We have always had a reserve capacity. When we get below where we need to be, I will discuss it with the mayor, who is the safety director.”
Firefighters Local 494 President David Witner said adding personnel is a matter of safety.
“My argument is we need 19 people [per shift] today,” he said. “I understand the cost. If the study said 16, I’d stand up here and say the study says 16 and I’d live with it. The study says 19.”
Witner said McGrath’s observation that the department is very lean and very busy isn’t necessarily a compliment. He suggested the current level of staffing could lead to injury or death for a firefighter.
“We are safe,” Moledor countered. “Sixty percent of the time, we are able to send more than 16 to a fire. When we can’t, we use mutual aid. We use overtime, we use a lot of tools to stay at that level.”
The fire department is doing more with less, Mayor Don Robart said.
City officials point with pride to the fact that its fire department’s insurance ranking is higher than 96 percent of the 2,200 departments in Ohio. And response time is below the national standard of five minutes.
Robart asserts residents have not called council members to complain about response time.
“We would have to take [the money] from somewhere else to get something we don’t need,” the mayor said.
While Witner agrees with the consultants that more staff is necessary, he does not agree with their recommendation to reduce the number of staff permitted to be off from six to five per day.
Robart said he is proud of the work of the fire department.
“Nobody has higher regard for our police and fire than I do,” he said. “But we have a budget to run and the chief is running a very efficient department — that came out loud and clear in the McGrath report.”