State, Bainbridge Officials Lay Out Changes to Fire Dept.

February 4, 2016 by Gwen Cooper

The Ohio Fire Chiefs’ Associ-ation’s 21 recommended changes to the Bainbridge Township Fire Department were met with some concern from roughly 35 firefighters at the Feb. 1 meeting with township trustees.

“Some of us will leave here with more questions than we came in with,” one firefighter said.

“It’s not fair to suggest members of the department haven’t stepped up,” said another.

“I’d say the mood was reserved,” Trustee Lorrie Sass Benza said after the meeting. “These are tough actions that are thought-provoking. This report has to be difficult for them, as it is for us. But, it has to be different going forward. We need to build morale back up.”

Allan Woo, a consultant with the OFCA and a retired fire chief, himself, presented his group’s findings to about 35 of the department’s 53 part-time firefighters and EMS workers attending the meeting. He called upon them to “step-up and volunteer” to make some of the easier changes in establishing consistency in procedures, training and other items he called “the low hanging fruit.”

He chided the department for not “being out more in the community” and for not being aware of potential bottlenecks that could create problems in the event of an emergency.

“Has anyone been to the senior center in the valley on Tuesday at 4 p.m.?” he asked, referring to South Franklin Circle. “I have, with all of the traffic and small buses, you wouldn’t be able to get a fire truck in there. You need to get out into the community and develop emergency plans.”

The report may not be easy for residents to embrace. It calls for the department to convert six of its part-time positions to full time status, which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased salaries and benefits. Some of the cost, the report argued, could be made up by decreasing the number of part-time workers needed.

Several firefighters said it would be difficult to take on some of the changes while working on a part-time basis.

“This is about my third job,” one said.

Woo recommended the workers commit to an increased number of hours.

According to the report, the department has had difficulty in consistently staffing the station with five part-time workers in each shift, especially on weekends and holidays.

“The use of bonuses as incentives to fill positions have been offered, though it is not uncommon to have positions go unfilled or for the chief or assistant chief to cover unfilled shifts,” it said.

The study noted the fire department has seen an overall increase in calls for service of 25 percent over the past 10 years, including an increase of about 32 percent for EMS calls alone. In 2006, the department responded to 1,306 calls, but by 2014, the calls increased to 1,626, the survey noted.

The OFCA’s report released in late December calls for sweeping changes in staffing, hiring, promotions, training, record-keeping and communications.

“These changes will require full-time leadership,” Benza said. “We have already taken steps to begin to address some of these recommendations.”

Trustee Jeff Markley added, “We’re not here to point fingers at anyone. We’re sure there have been miscommunications from the trustees, but we’re all going to figure out how to fix it.”

Markley, the trustees’ liaison to the department, said he does not have a specific timeline, but “some things need to change immediately.”

Markley suggested the fire department begin to work simultaneously on procedural items in the report.

“If we both start and work toward the middle, we’ll accomplish more,” Markley explained.

After the meeting, Fire Chief Brian Phan said he agreed with the report.

“The procedural stuff needs to be cleaned up,” Phan said. “We have a lot of talent here and with a labor agreement put into place in mid-December, we have a structure to be able to do that.”

Phan said he has wanted to take many of the recommended steps for some time.

“I’ve put full-time staffing in my budget for the past few years,” he said.