by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department is struggling to keep pace with the city’s growth, leading to exhausted firefighters and longer response times, the most senior member of the rescue department said Tuesday.
Chief Larry Osborne told the Peyton Transition Team’s Fire and Rescue subcommittee that the stretched-out department’s resources were “getting shaky from top to bottom.” He said a $94 million budget was not enough to provide needed equipment and competitive salaries to a department that Firehouse Magazine recently ranked the nation’s 15th busiest. The subcommittee will review the department’s organization and personnel and make recommendations to Mayor-elect John Peyton.
The City’s fire and rescue budget breaks down to $79,325 spent on salary and resources for each of the department’s 1,185 employees, compared to Orlando, which last year spent about $83,000 on its 482 fire and rescue personnel. Jacksonville keeps 265 responders on call daily to cover an 840 square mile area, including Atlantic and Neptune Beach.
“It hasn’t got to the point where our people are in danger,” said Osborne. “But the current administration has almost denied these needs.”
As the City has grown, so has its need for fire and emergency services. A two-year-old City study predicted the department would respond to 104,000 calls by 2010. Last year, Osborne told the committee, the department answered 106,000 calls.
The transition subcommittee heard a similar story from 16-year department veteran Cindy Davis of the Administrative Division. She requested help for what she called an overworked headquarters staff. She said two payroll workers were responsible for over 1,200 firefighters and said staffers sometimes stay until 9 or 10 p.m. to file paperwork on major fires.
In an attempt to secure funding from the next year’s budget, Davis said the department usually spends its money by June or July, leaving nothing in reserve until the fiscal year begins in October.
“The budget is figured in March, so we’ll try to spend the majority of our money up front,” said Davis. “If you have money left, they’ll cut your budget.”
Several fire department members called by the committee said many firehouses were dilapidated, in need of reconstruction or replacement. Osborne said Station 26 in Pickettville has a garage that’s not deep enough to accommodate new fire trucks, adding that many of the outlying stations were inherited from volunteer departments. He said they were never conceived to be serviceable urban stations.
Osborne said the new mayor’s biggest challenge would be filling the void created by 300 departmental retirements over the next two years. The exodus stems from the Deferred Retirement Option Program, which offers fire and rescue personnel a five-year incentive package in exchange for stepping down. Designed to create a younger department, the program could instead leave it understaffed if the City cannot recruit sufficient replacements.
Making that job more difficult, Osborne said, would be statewide competition for qualified personnel. He said top academy recruits are increasingly pursued by South and Central Florida departments that offer more than Jacksonville’s $25,000 starting salary.
Subcommittee chair Lynn Pappas took special note of the department’s physical needs, but said she wanted to hear the current administration’s view before culling recommendations from her committee. Sam Mousa, Mayor John Delaney’s chief administrator officer, will address the committee Monday.
Pappas said she has not seen resumes for the department’s six job openings, including the chief’s job currently held by Ray Alfred. Peyton said during the campaign that he would promote from within the department to replace Alfred, but Pappas said she hadn’t received instructions to give preference to department veterans. The subcommittee will begin interviews in two weeks.