MARY REGAN
WESTFIELD – Fire Chief Mary Regan said the Fire Department will be level-funded in the Fiscal Year 2015 budget now under review by the City Council’s Finance Committee.
The committee initiated that review last night, discussing that there is little new revenue in the proposed Fire Department budget, but there are several new positions in the department’s budget.
Regan said that those new positions are being paid from the department’s Ambulance Fund Account and that she is planning to add three new emergency medical services (EMS) paramedics who will also be cross-trained as firefighters.
Regan said the goal is to increase personnel assigned to each of the department’s four groups, which in the long run will reduce the cost of overtime, which is projected at more than $400,000 in the current fiscal year budget.
“We will see a decrease in overtime when all of the groups at fully staffed,” Regan said, “and it will be safer for both the citizens of the city and firefighters.”
The minimal staffing level per group is 15 personnel, the number of people needed to keep all of the department’s apparatus and substations in service. With the new hires each group will have 18 members.
Regan said the current system of replacing retiring personnel is both cumbersome and time-consuming.
“Filling vacancies can take up to six months, leaving a group short until someone is hired and trained,” Regan said.
Regan also said the focus of the department has moved toward EMS function.
“EMS is 70 percent of the work the department does now,” Regan said.
The 2015 budget reflect that fact as the Ambulance Fund absorbs new salaries.
“We’re shifting some of the burden over to the Ambulance Fund because there have been revenue increases,” Regan said. “The Fire (Department) budget is all contractual items, there’s maybe between 7 and 9 percent for other uses.”
