MA Chief: FD Had Eyed Closing Different Station to End Blackouts

NEW BEDFORD, MA—Fire Station 9 in the city's North End was originally set for closure, not Station 11 in the South End, according to Fire Chief Paul Coderre.

Coderre was speaking at the City Council's Public Safety and Neighborhoods Committee meeting Wednesday night, where he had been invited to discuss the Fire Department's rolling blackout policy and ways to end it.

The policy left one fire apparatus in the city unmanned on a rotating basis.

The week before Wednesday's meeting, Coderre announced the end of the blackouts, but said in order to do it the department would have to decommission Engine 11 in March.

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At the meeting the councilors in attendance questioned the chief about the decision to decommission Engine 11.

"We were looking at closing Station 9, that's the station that was on the chopping block," Coderre told the councilors, "That was in January, I fought hard to not have Engine 9 close down."

Coderre said no station should close, but called closing company 11 "the lesser of two evils" since it was set to be closed when the Public Safety Center on Brock Ave opened in March of next year anyway.

"You know as well as I do once a station goes away, once an engine goes away — unless we have a rainfall of money — it doesn't come back," Coderre said.

In response to the thought of Station 9 being closed, Committee Chair Brian Gomes said, "To take away Engine 9 wow, that leaves 5 all alone, that leaves them stranded."

Station 9 is close to Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational-Technical High School, Normandin Middle School and the New Bedford Regional Airport.

At the meeting Wednesday Coderre said he would need 231 bodies to sustain 10 companies and he is only budgeted for 216. The department currently has 208 employees, with 8 vacancies.

The overtime hours used to cover the 10 companies resulted in the department going $980,000 over their overtime budget, Coderre said.

"I've asked to hire, I've been told no due to fiscal constraints," Coderre said.

Three or four months ago, Coderre said, the mayor tasked him to come up with a solution to blackouts.

There were four possible solutions according to Coderre: adding $800,000 to $1 million to the department's overtime account, hiring 23 people, putting an additional $2.5 million in the budget, or shutting down a company.

"I have to stay within my budget that's given to me, whether I agree with my budget or not, and to do so the only practical solution is to close a company," Coderre said. "It's not comfortable, it's not a popular choice, but what else is the choice, the other three I identified aren't going to happen."

Coderre said the peninsula in the South End will remain in compliance with accepted response times after Engine 11 is decommissioned, although he said he can't guarantee that the response time is going to be the same as when the engine was running.

During the meeting the council committee discussed possible ways to get the money needed to end the blackouts and keep Engine 11 running.

Councilor-at-large Ian Abreu asked the city's CFO Ari Sky if money saved from concessions made by public employees during negotiations on health care and benefits could be reallocated to the fire department.

Sky said despite the concessions made, "We still had a $3 million increase in health care costs, it would have been more if we hadn't had the concessions."

Additional pressures on the budget were also discussed by Sky.

"To be honest we have some more pressure on the budget this year because City Council cut $1.3 million from GGU (General Government Unclassified Fund) and that's a number we have to figure out a way to make up," Sky said.

The GGU funds the trash contract and city employee benefits like FICA and life insurance, according to Sky.

Sky said $2.7 million would be needed to fully staff 10 companies.

According to Jon Carvalho, the mayor's spokesman, a company consists of 24 positions: 20 firefighters, 3 lieutenants, and a captain. The average total cost of each position, including total annual compensation and benefits such as pension and healthcare, is: $104,974 for firefighters, $121,156 for lieutenants, and $134,495 for captain. (Compensation without benefits would average out at: $77,573/firefighters, $93,565/lieutenants, and $106,727/captain.

The total cost for the compensation of a company then comes to just under $2.6 million, Carvalho said. Add to that another $100,000 a year on average in operating costs including fuel, supplies, water, vehicle depreciation, and the annual cost is approximately $2.7 million.

"I'm not quite sure how to wrap my head around the idea that we cut $1.3 million from the budget in the budget process and then we come back and say 'Why can't you add staffing that cost $2.7 million' I can't square those numbers," Sky said.

During the meeting Gomes suggested transferring money from another department to the fire department to cover the $800,000 to $1 million needed to cover overtime costs, but did not specify where the money would be transferred from.

He later asked if there was any consideration for including the $2.7 million in the next budget in order to be able to fully fund 10 companies.

Sky replied that they are early in the budget process, "but if past is prologue I don't believe the mayor has much interest in fully funding for 10."

If the money for 10 was included in the budget, Sky said residential taxes would go up around $120 per year per single family house.

Many of the councilors have taken a stand against the decommissioning of Engine 11, with Councilors Gomes, Abreu, Joseph Lopes, Maria Giesta, and Scott Lima attending a press conference put on by New Bedford Firefighters Local 841 calling on the mayor to keep Station 11 open and insisting that the closure jeopardizes public safety on the peninsula.

At the meeting, Ward 3 Councilor Hugh Dunn said, "For the record this motion was supposed to convene the conversation about ending the blackouts and I'm troubled, but not surprised, that the administration has run forward and developed its own plan that amputates fire safety for one part of the city and doesn't really address blackouts, I'm disappointed that there wasn't a real coming to the table to have a really candid conversation."

The meeting ended with the council making a motion to ask the administration to reconsider the closing of Engine 11 and to fully fund the fire department to allow for ten fully staffed companies.

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