'Status Quo Not Sustainable' for Ky. Fire Department

ASHLAND, Ky. -- Financially, "The status quo is just not sustainable," for the Ashland Fire Department, according to Tim McGrath, a consultant that recently evaluated the department for the city.

Tim McGrath, president of McGrath Consulting Group, Inc., and Victoria McGrath, CEO of the consulting group, presented the results of the report at Thursday meeting of the Ashland Board of City Commissioners.

The report examined many areas of the department and made more than 90 recommendations. Key areas highlighted involved staffing, the high number of false alarms and firefighter overtime.

Tim McGrath said there is little that fire department officials have control over in the department budget. An average of 95.46 percent of the fire department budget went to salaries and benefits during the last three years.

The report states that "The consultants have never experienced or seen this high of a percentage of a budget being spent on salaries and benefits."

A significant portion of that, almost 30 percent, is overtime pay, Tim McGrath said.

Victoria McGrath said Kentucky, unlike most states, prevents fire departments from using a federal exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act that would create an average savings on overtime of $5,629 per fire fighter per year, or an annual savings of about $129,460.

She recommended the city lobby legislators in Frankfort to allow the federal exemption to be used. She also recommended the use of "Kelly Days" or days taken off to minimize overtime.

Without some action, recommended staffing levels will be unsustainable, Victoria McGrath said.

"Unless you start bringing in a whole bunch of income, between your overtime expenses and between your pension expenses and the number of times the state of Kentucky has decided to sue municipalities over overtime, it's not going to really gonna matter how many numbers you really need because you're just simply not going to be able to afford them," she said.

Fire Chief Scott Penick said he's concerned about the fire department budget and the future presented in the report. The fire department operations budget is about $220,000 a year, with the rest of the budget going to salary and benefits.

"We are at the bare minimum," he said. "We can't cut that anymore."

The report also discussed staffing, recommending a minimum shift staffing of 13 and a maximum of 17, though the maximum would ideally be 18.

Tim McGrath said working with a maximum staffing of 16 is possible, but that leads to a lot of overtime hours, which eventually workers may not want to take.

"It's kind of like burning a candle at both ends," he said. "Eventually, it's going to catch up with you."

Penick said he would have liked to see a higher recommendation for the minimum shift staffing, though he said the fire department has operated with that minimum standard since he's worked there.

"We have kind of taken that on as our acceptable risk even though it's not really acceptable," he said.

The fire department is currently funded for staffing of a maximum of 16 per shift, Penick said. Because of that, he's supportive of the 17 maximum recommended in the report.

The minimum staffing should be at 14 for Ashland, according to National Fire Protection Association standards, said Keith Salmon, president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 706.

However, he said he isn't disappointed by the recommendation of a 13 minimum because going to a 10 minimum had been discussed before the study was done.

"If we go to a minimum of 10- man staffing, a 10-man minimum, then we reduce our operations and our effectiveness 30-some percent," he said.

Another concern Tim McGrath highlighted during the meeting is Ashland's high percentage of false alarms.

Between 2008 and 2010, an average 25.5 percent of calls to the fire department were false alarms or false calls. That's compared to 11.5 percent nationally and 10.2 percent in the southern region.

"That should simply be unacceptable," Tim McGrath said.

He recommended more followup investigations when the cause of alarm or sprinkler activations can't initially be determined and instituting a false alarm ordinance that would require repeat offenders to pay a fine.

City Commissioner Kevin Gunderson said he would consider supporting such an ordinance.

"I used to oppose a false-alarm charge, but I'm starting to come around on that," he said.

Gunderson asked about the biggest offenders as far as falsealarms, claiming Scope Towers, the apartment complex run by the Housing Authority of Ashland, was probably among the biggest causes of false alarms.

But Penick said he doesn't consider alarms at the apartment complex to be false alarms, given its high population numbers and many residents are elderly.

"That alarm system is working the way it's supposed to," he said.

Overall, Penick said he views the report as positive for the city and his department.

"I truly see this as an opportunity for us to move, improve and grow," he said.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service