Lebanon
The City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to accept a federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency, or SAFER, grant, which will provide much of the funding for the full-time positions.
Both firefighters are needed to help manage an increasing number of emergency calls throughout Lebanon, Fire Chief Chris Christopoulos told city councilors.
“We are carrying a pretty high workload right now with our firefighters,” he said in an audio recording of the meeting.
The SAFER grant program provides funding to fire departments across the country so that they have the manpower to adequately respond to emergencies.
Over the grant’s three-year run, costs are shared, with the federal government footing about three quarters of the bill during the first two years.
All together, Lebanon is expected to pay a total of $229,839 toward the firefighters, while the federal government would contribute $369,741 over the same time period.
The city al expects to save roughly $75,000 in overtime and maintenance costs, bringing Lebanon’s total expense down to $154,839, Christopoulos said.
Considering an entry level firefighter can cost the city $100,000 a year, the grant provides a “creative approach” to help solve a pressing issue, he said.
The two firefighters would be used to bolster the department’s current 23-member roster, which has been asked to respond to an increasing number of emergencies over the last 10 years, according to Christopoulos.
The city has roughly the same amount of firefighters as Hanover (20) and Hartford (17), he told the council, but it’s responding to many more calls, partially because of an increase in senior housing units.
In 2016, the fire department recorded 3,476 calls for service, up 29 percent over 10 years. By comparison, Hanover responded to 1,797 calls and Hartford totaled 1,924 last year.
Lebanon’s fire crews also responded to 1,339 overlapping calls last year, meaning they were expected to handle two or more incidents at the same time.
That puts a burden on the city’s firefighters, Christopoulos said, and senior staff members are more often expected to fill staffing holes on emergency calls.
Traditionally, the city’s fire stations have had six on-duty firefighters at all times. But current staffing levels make that difficult, he said.
“Any time somebody takes a vacation day, sick day, is on training leave, personal time (or) bereavement leave that first position we don’t back fill,” Christopoulos said in the audio recording. “So, we’ll run down to five (firefighters).”
The city is down one firefighter roughly 45 percent of the time, he said. But even with a full shift, the city fails to meet national standards.
Christopoulos said Lebanon would have to hire 11 more firefighters to meet guidelines set forth by the ICMA, a Washington-based local government organization. A staffing report published in 2008 also recommended the city hire a total of 33 staffers, he said.
“Understand that what we’re asking for in this stops some of the bleeding that we have been dealing with,” Christopoulos told the City Council, adding its unlikely the volume of calls would decrease soon.
“The need for the positions doesn’t necessarily go away in three years, so obviously you know my preference would be to maintain (the positions),” he said.
City councilors were supportive of the grant but weary of its potential cost once the grant ends.
Some said on Wednesday that they hope to explore other options to fund the positions into the future.
“The inclination is going to be at the end of three years that somebody’s going to come to us and ask us to fully fund these two additional positions permanently,” Assistant Mayor Tim McNamara said in the recording.
Instead of taxpayers funding those positions, he said, the city should soon begin an effort to find alternative ways to increase the fire department’s revenue.
“We just can’t keep ratcheting this up year after year,” McNamara said. “I think that we’re going to have to look at some really innovative ways to get our costs down if we’re going to retain a fire department this size or larger.”
City Councilor Sarah Welsch agreed, saying she would like to see an investigation into how to best find long-term funding.
“I don’t see this as three years and then we go back to where we were,” she said. “I don’t know that anybody on the council sees it that way.”
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.