Spring Break
Fire division fights for funds
Erin Fischesser
Issue date: 11/3/09 Section: Community
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"Council is looking at funding to put three guys on at night starting the beginning of next year," Oxford Fire Chief John Detherage said.
According to City Manager Doug Elliott, the additional staff will put the city in a budget deficit if the current proposed budget is passed.
"The additional cost will be $300,000 that we will be adding to our budget at the request of council," Elliott said. "This will mean that the operating budget will show a net deficit of just under $500,000."
According to Elliott, the city has some extra money not used in the budget and not currently assigned a specific use that can provide the necessary funding.
Detherage said the decision will cost the fire department some equipment, such as a defibrillator and laptops for some of the trucks, but he said he had to choose what would be most beneficial.
"They wanted to cut our operating budget, but I requested that they take it out of our capital improvement budget," Detherage said.
According to Detherage and Elliott, the staff position additions follow a plan enacted in 2008 to bring on three firefighter-EMTs for the first shift from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The new plan will create a second shift to serve from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
"What we found when we brought the first shift on was that we were able to improve our response times overall on the average by about three and a half minutes," Elliott said. "We would expect a similar improvement in our response times on the second shift."
Elliott said the change will be an improvement to the current system.
"Presently we rely on volunteers to come in when an alarm sounds or we have a call to respond to for EMS," Elliott said. "Council felt this was very important to move ahead to address the staffing and response times on the second shift so we are moving forward with that."
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 4
trapper
posted 11/03/09 @ 5:20 AM EST
It would be interesting to see how many of the runs go to the University and how much $$ Miami pays for these services.
jed dean
posted 11/03/09 @ 10:19 PM EST
if 3 partime emts cost $300M, please let me apply
Paul Brady
posted 11/04/09 @ 9:23 AM EST
The answer is in 2008 out of 1540 EMS calls for service 626 went to the mile square or campus. That my friends is 41%.
Alysia Fischer
posted 11/06/09 @ 10:34 AM EST
Adding 3 part-time firefighters doesn't cost $300K, but having 3 part-time fire-fighters at the station from 7 pm to 7 am every night does. In other words, far more than 3 part-time firefighters will be hired to fill those shifts. (Continued…)
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