WESTFIELD- Fire Chief Patrick Egloff addressed his concerns with the City Council’s cuts to the fire department budget Monday at the Little River Fire Station during the monthly Fire Commission meeting.
Last Thursday, the City Council voted to cut $157,153 from the Fire Department’s new vehicle budget. Egloff originally budgeted $177,000 for several vehicles which he said were in need of replacement. Those vehicles included a new command vehicle, training vehicle, brush truck, rescue boat, and chief’s vehicle. Egloff said that the remaining $20,000 might be able to cover the cost of the new boat, but that would be it.
“Really, the thing I needed the most was a new command vehicle because the fire prevention vehicle is really falling apart,” said Egloff, adding that the existing vehicle is at least 12-years-old.
Egloff reiterated that he would request free cash in November to make up for the lost budget and hopefully purchase the new vehicles for the department.He said that he has spoken to councilors Ralph J. Figy, Michael Burns, and John J. Beltrandi III about a “lease-to-own” payment system for three years. This would allow him to make the first lease payment this year, and include the next two payments in the budgets over the next two fiscal years.
Chief Egloff then noted that he stayed up and watched the 9-hour marathon budget meeting until the fire department had its turn. The first line items for the fire department’s budget were first discussed shortly before midnight that night.
“One of the city councilors said that I padded my budget, which is absolutely not true,” said Egloff, “I did my budget back in March. There was an anticipated new chief in the budget. At the time I was temporary chief, but I was actually still a deputy chief.”
He added that when he was promoted, he was placed into the “anticipated new chief’”portion of the salary budget, Benjamin Warren was placed into the deputy chief’s spot, and Joe Szenda was placed in Warrens old captain’s position.
“The way it was sold to the whole of the council was that I had doubled up on a person, which I didn’t,” said Egloff, “So they cut my budget about $30,000 just on contractual items. Things that have to get paid.”
He then said that this may result in the department being unable to hire all the new firefighters and paramedics they need to hire over the next fiscal year. He claimed that the budget cuts were a safety issue to the department. According to Egloff, his budget was looked over carefully in an audit, where a budget “padding” would have been noticed.
Egloff then asked Burns if he could go for the free cash in November, to which Burns said he could try.
“The City Council made decisions based on bad information,” said Egloff.
Although Egloff did not name the councilors who claimed the budget was padded, a review of the uploaded video recording of the 9-hour meeting showed that it was At-Large Councilor Matt Emmershy who made the claim. He said that there was an extra $26,322 in the fire department’s education budget.
“The fire department had this turn much earlier, and yet they still had the numbers as if Chief [Mary] Regan was retiring,” said Emmershy, “The estimate for a new chief, the $26,322, is what Chief Regan was receiving for education. Chief Egloff did not get an education stipend when he was a deputy, unlike the others. That number appears to be a pad.”
