Racine Fire chief preparing for reduced staffing levels
This was the message from Fire Chief
Since 2010, the city has reduced its budgeted personnel by 65 positions. Until now, public safety was excluded from those reductions.
However, facing tough budget constraints, the city proposed eliminating 12 positions from the
Paraphrasing comments made by Police Chief
"It's a challenge," he said. "It's going to cause us to rethink and develop new ways of dealing with emergency responses in the city of
There are currently seven open positions in the
Hansen said he anticipates several retirements at the end of the year, so his department will be able to eliminate nine positions without actually laying anyone off.
Reduced crews
Although discussions are ongoing, the plan is to reduce 3-person ambulance crews to 2-person ambulance crews.
Alderman
Hansen said that the plan is to work closely with dispatchers to ensure the right personnel are dispatched to every call for service.
He explained there are four different levels of care the
-- BLS (Basic Life Support)
-- ALS (Advanced Life Support) for traumas and such.
-- ALS 1 (Advanced Life Support Critical Care) for heart attacks and strokes, etc.
-- A fourth level for those who do not have a pulse/have ceased to breathe.
Hansen said different scenarios may get a different combination of companies responding. With the right information from dispatchers, the
Getting the right resources rolling will take planning and cooperation between dispatch and the
Hansen also told the
All personnel are cross-trained so that all firefighters are paramedics and vice versa.
Additional funding opportunities
The RFD is currently working to obtain what is known as assistance to firefighter grants for equipment. One grant submitted back in March for
There are also opportunities for RFD to improve revenues through EMS billing. Two years ago, the department began working with its crews in earnest to improve billing, Hansen said.
With an outside firm, the department gave staff additional training in report writing, for more concise and accurate reports, along with other tasks, so their billing agency,
The challenge, Hansen continued, is that 87% of the people they transport are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, or have no insurance at all. The federal government does not fully reimburse hospitals or Fire Departments for EMS transports.
Hansen said he hoped in the future the federal government would revisit the issue because costs for that service go up every year.
In the meantime, the RFD remains in a good position for response during the pandemic, he said.
Hansen said the department has been in a good position since the start, with the right protective gear to protect the crews responding to emergency situations, and to protect members of the public who are being transported.
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