Just two days after the city announced the layoffs of 164 Detroit firefighters because of its budget woes, federal money appears to be on the way to save most of those jobs.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said Wednesday that the city has been approved for a $22.5-million federal grant from the Department of Homeland Security's Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) program.
On Monday, the city announced plans to lay off 164 firefighters by the end of July. Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said he hoped a two-year federal grant would be awarded to the city in an effort to restore at least 108 of those positions.
Those layoffs will still occur, Bing's office said Wednesday, because the grant money is not expected to flow into Detroit until at least September.
Firefighters are expected to be recalled to duty once the funds are in place. City officials were not expecting to receive word of whether the grant was approved until fall.
"We anticipated receiving this grant, but it is great news for the citizens of Detroit," Bing said in a statement. "We will receive the money sooner than expected."
Bing said he hopes that many, if not most, of the remaining 56 firefighters who will be forced to leave their jobs will be recalled as the Fire Department loses others through retirement and attrition.
The Fire Department has 881 sworn firefighters and 248 EMS technicians.
"There's no other city that's more deserving than Detroit," said Dan McNamara, president of the Detroit Fire Fighters Association. "Citizens can rest easier tonight. It doesn't fix it all, but it sure starts it."
Still, McNamara said, the averted layoffs will mean more firefighters are on the job at any given time, keeping response times lower and maintaining the city's firefighting power.
But McNamara said he expects that keeping the 108 firefighters will sway the department to reduce the number of fire companies it closes; the city had proposed cutting 16 companies citywide in a consolidation effort, in addition to reducing the number of fire inspectors. Those issues still must be addressed, McNamara said.
East-side resident Elmarie Dixon, a retiree on a fixed income, said she was relieved to hear the firefighters won't be laid off. Her neighborhood has been hit by blazes in vacant homes, and she worried enough about the city's diminished ability to fight fires that she considered moving irreplaceable goods out of her house.
"That's what I thought about in my head -- getting my pictures and memorabilia and putting it in some type of storage so I wouldn't lose everything, because I didn't think they would be coming," Dixon, who attended a public meeting Bing held Wednesday night, said of city firefighters.
SAFER provides grants to fire departments nationwide to help ensure that they have the firefighters they need, Levin said in a statement.
Copyright 2012 - Detroit Free Press
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
