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Fire Department
needs daily staffing For more than 125 years, when the tones have sounded for an emergency in the city and surrounding area, Lake Geneva Fire Department's on-call volunteer personnel have responded. But that may no longer be the case without a significant change in staffing, according to Fire Department officers. On Oct. 4, the Lake Geneva Police and Fire Commission agreed and approved an idea to man the fire station with part-time, paid on-premise personnel from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. The plan will be put into operation starting March 1, 2008, and the issue now will go to the city's budget committee to discuss funding. The plan will put three firefighter/EMTs at the station during the weekday hours. They will respond to rescue and fire calls during the daytime hours when the on-call personnel are not always available, mainly because of their full-time employment and other responsibilities. The paid on-premise personnel are expected to resolve the daytime staffing issues and assure immediate response during the high-demand weekday hours, according to the Fire Department's staffing assessment. "Our people have always been there to do the job." Fire Chief Brent Connelly said prior to the PFC meeting. "I would like to say we are covered, but we just don't have all the people in town when we need them. We haven't had the issue that no one has responded, but we also don't want to give a false sense of security. We just don't have the personnel that are going to be guaranteed to respond." Members of the Fire Department worked on a staffing assessment for several months, studying and gathering information from other departments and how they are dealing with the situation of on-call personnel being unable to respond to calls. According to the staffing report and department officers, the staffing shortages mainly are due to many Lake Geneva Fire Department volunteers being employed outside of the city during the daytime hours. Other issues include employers no longer allowing their employees to leave for emergencies. "Everybody is trying to find a way to fill in these gaps," Fire Department Capt. Mark Moller-Gunderson said in an interview. “We are not unique in the challenges we are having. The bulk of fire services in the country are volunteers or paid on call. Everybody is running into the same issues”. Fire Department Capt. John Peters said department officers believe this is the way to resolve the issues. He said paid on-premise personnel is an answer other departments across the county are using to resolve response issues. The paid on-premise personnel will respond to calls for medical emergencies, fires, fire alarms and vehicle accidents. The paid on-premise personnel would usually be the only ones to handle EMS rescue calls. However, on-call personnel still will be dispatched for fires and car accidents. "The benefit is immediate response", Connelly said. "The big issue is that the size of a fire doubles every minute. The quicker we can get there, the better. Even though we have a good system, this is going to get us there even quicker to provide better and faster lifesaving care. The paid on-premise personnel also will have other duties while at the fire station, including ensuring the operational readiness of apparatus and equipment, performing station maintenance and cleaning, assisting the Fire Prevention Bureau and conducting training exercises. The cost of the program is expected to be about $225,000. Fire Department officers said additional revenue from fire and EMS will offset the costs to the tune of about $185,000 of that total”. “This is a proposal that will meet the need and is cost-effective for taxpayers” Moller-Gunderson said. “We are all taxpayers”. Captain Peters, who presented the idea to the PFC, said the change won't eliminate the need for the volunteer on-call personnel. "All of us will still come in and we are not taking anything away from them", Peters said. “They (paid on-call personnel) are still the backbone of the department. But, we are just focusing on what is best for the people outside of these four walls and this is the idea that came out of this. We want to provide the best service for the people out there. That is why we are here.” Although the idea is coming to fruition, the department officers have known for quite some time that something would have to be done regarding personnel staffing during the day. "The public has the image that we will show up when they need us," Moller-Gunderson said. "We need to help them understand more fully the challenges we are facing. The department has always provided first rate services and we are trying everything we can to continue that. This is a great community and a great department. We want to do the best we can. The biggest piece to this is always what's best for the residents." Cost concern PFC members voiced concern about whether the City Council would approve funding for the plan. However, Commissioner Scott Storms said, "This is something that needs to be done and money must be found for the project. We don't have a choice. We cannot afford to continue to operate a fire department the way we have been. We can't hide any more.” Time has come
for daily fire department staffing It's an issue that has been delayed for years.
The problem is happening in volunteer fire departments across the
state and country. People are just too
busy to train and serve as firefighters and EMTs on volunteer departments.
The reality is, for the city of Lake Geneva to continue the fire
and rescue services the people of the area deserve, something has to
change. Actually, a change is probably
long overdue. It's time for the city of
Lake Geneva to join many other departments by having paid personnel to
staff the fire station on a daily basis.
The volunteer fire department the city has relied on for more than 125
years, has been changing and there are several reasons.
Some firefighters no longer can or are allowed to leave their
full-time jobs during the day to respond to emergencies.
Employers just can't allow their valuable employees to leave
work during the day, sometimes multiple times, especially in summer.
Also, as the number of people in the area
continues to increase, the number of calls on a daily basis increases.
More volunteer firefighters no longer work
in the area during the day, which also leaves staff in a bind.
There are options to resolve this problem, including hiring
full-time fire and EMT personnel manning the station 24 hours a day, seven
days a week. That would be tremendously
expensive for a city this size. Not only
would the fire and EMT personnel need to be paid for their hours, but
costly health insurance also would have to be picked up by the city
taxpayers. So, the Lake Geneva Fire
Department officers have come up with a different, less expensive plan;
paid on-premise staffing. The department
wants to have three part-timers available at the fire station from 7 a.m.
to 7 p.m. during the weekdays. This will
allow the fire station to have personnel immediately available during
those hours, which continue to be the main problem time.
This also will improve the fire
inspections in the city as well as fire education efforts, because the
personnel at the station during the day will provide help in those areas
when they are not responding to emergencies.
This concept is going to cost the city and all of its taxpayers,
but it needs to be done. Early projections
are that it will increase the department's expense budget by about
$225,000. However, through billing of
services provided by the Fire Department and EMS, the city could recoup up
to about $185,000 of that total, leaving the city to pick up the tab of
about $40,000. This is a small amount for
taxpayers to spend to ensure that our fire protection services remain of
the high quality we have come to expect in the city of Lake Geneva.
Since 1880, the Lake Geneva Fire Department has been relied upon to
respond to emergencies in the area. When
the emergency call goes out, volunteer personnel have done their job to
protect and help the residents of the city and surrounding areas for
years. All city taxpayers should want that
quality of service to continue. Our fire
department should remain a source of pride for the city.
Having paid on-premise personnel will only
add to the pride we have for the great fire protection and the wonderfully
giving fire and EMS personnel who volunteer their time.
These volunteers, who give up their personal time with
friends and family to respond to calls and to train, will continue to
provide services on a daily basis. This
plan just ensures there are enough personnel to respond during the day,
while improving response times and efficiency. Municipal
budgets are tight, there is no question about that.
Whether this concept will only cost about $40,000 is still in
question. It probably won't be answered
until the plan is implemented for at least one year.
However, the bigger question is, can the city afford not to do
this? |