Council OKs more OT money to keep Magnolia fire station open

Jan. 28--Fire Chief Eric Smith has been given a green light to shift another $20,000 into the Fire Department's overtime budget to keep the Magnolia fire station open 75 percent of the time or more through the end of June.

He and other city officials say their hands are essentially tied when it comes to finding a means of operating the station on a more optimal basis until they can craft a new overall budget that steers the department back toward full strength when the next fiscal year begins July 1.

The added overtime dollars, which were approved by the City Council on Tuesday night, will come from Fire Department funds that had been set aside for training. The money will now be used to pay off-duty firefighters on overtime to bring staffing up to the level needed to keep Magnolia open.

That means the department has now more than doubled what was an initial $100,000 overtime allocation with an additional $146,000 from other accounts over the course of the year, bringing overtime spending to $246,000.

"We're not happy with this," Smith told city councilors Tuesday night, outlining the spending and staffing crunch that's kept the station closed 25 percent to 30 percent of the time since mid-December. The Fuller Street station, which reopened in July 2014 after extensive renovations, was operating for all but three individual firefighters' shifts from then until this past Dec. 10.

"For one thing, this money comes out of the funds we have for training, and training is important to our department," Smith continued. "But we also recognize that keeping the stations open is more important."

For some councilors and Magnolia residents, however, having the station closed 20 percent to 25 percent of the time -- a target Smith said he thinks the department can hit for Magnolia through the end of this fiscal year in June -- is still not good enough.

Magnolia residents Charles and Janet Marcous told councilors Tuesday night of how a 2005 fire destroyed their house in Magnolia on a day when the station was closed.

"It would have been a minor fire if the station had been open at the time," Charles Marcous related. "We did have two firemen arrive from West Gloucester (station), but then had to wait another 10 minutes for more (firefighters based at Central Station on School Street), and it was too late.

"We have nearly half the city in West Gloucester and Magnolia," he said, pleading for the council to take the steps needed to supply full Magnolia station coverage.

Smith, agreeing that firefighter response times to Magnolia jump from 4 to 8 minutes whenever the station is closed, reiterated the department's plight. Over the last year, the department has seen three disability retirements, a string of injuries and firefighters' absence through the Family Medical Leave Act take the active roster for a 72-firefighter department down to around 63 as of Monday.

While he's interviewing and looking to hire one firefighter/paramedic, the department does not have the money to hire more.

Smith says he's hopeful some firefighters' recoveries and a new fiscal 2017 budget can account for bringing the department up to 72 people on active duty effective July 1, but the department doesn't have the cash now to cover more gaps with overtime call-ins when fewer than 18 firefighters report for duty. That's the cutoff limit to keep Magnolia open under the city's contract with its firefighters' union.

Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken reiterated Wednesday that the city does not have the available levels of free cash to throw at the problem as has been done in recent years.

After a series of budget strains and contract disputes led to the almost constant shutdown of Magnolia's station -- and stations at Bay View and West Gloucester -- from 2009 through 2013, the department was restructured under Smith and then-Mayor Carolyn Kirk with commitments to keep all stations open "as frequently as possible," beginning in July 2014.

Smith notes, however, that the city had to funnel $700,000 into the overtime account to support the Bay View station alone that year.

"We cannot take one-time money to cover this," Romeo Theken said. "When this first came up (in December), we looked at it to see whether, if we added a little bit, what it could get us. But there was no guarantee it would have worked to keep the stations open all the time, and without that, we didn't feel we could do it."

The mayor said she and city negotiators will be taking "a very close look" at the firefighters' contract with an eye toward savings that could be put toward more consistent openings for all stations. The current contract -- with the department's restructuring and current minimum staffing standards -- expires June 30.

Meanwhile, the Fire Department's total budget has already risen from $6.2 million in fiscal 2014 to a current fiscal 2016 spending plan of $8.6 million.

"There are no easy answers," the mayor said, "but we have to look to solve this together, with all of us working as a team."

Tuesday night, several councilors agreed.

"We'll work on it," said Councilor-at-Large Jamie O'Hara, who lives in Magnolia and was a co-founder of Gloucester's Citizens for Public Safety group. He also served in the search committee that brought Smith on board as chief in 2012. "We all want to have all of the stations open."

"We have to get our hands around how to take the final step to do that," agreed Ward 1 Councilor Scott Memhard. Recognizing budget and staffing talks as a "straightforward approach," Memhard, chairman of the council's new Budget and Finance subcommittee, noted the essential nature of fire safety coverage.

"A fire is never straightforward," he said. "A fire is emotional, it's tangible, it affects insurance, it affects a lot of things. Next year, we want to be in a position to keep all of the stations open -- all of the time."

Staff Writer Ray Lamont can be reached at 978-675-2705, or via email at rlamont@gloucestertimes.com.

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