Village Council debates how to improve fire service

NEW LEXINGTON — At its May 20 meeting, New Lexington Village Council had a long, sometimes heated discussion about ways to improve the service offered by the village’s Fire and EMS Department, reaching no clear conclusions other than to continue to work collaboratively on the issue,

The discussion was prompted by Fire Chief Jim Fain, who told council that he had obtained an audio recording of a previous council meeting, at which there had been some discussion of the fire department, and he had not been pleased with what he heard.

“I’m sad to say that what was being said didn’t surprise me at all,” Fain told the council. “We’ve been hearing the same stuff for the last eight years.”

One issue he said had been discussed was the department’s bylaws.

“(Councilmember) Bob (Spencer) said that they were deemed illegal years ago,” Fain said. “I reviewed them when I came in, and I also had an attorney look at them, and rightly so, they should have been deemed illegal. They were very outdated; they would not pass muster for anything that’s being done today. And so that’s exactly the reason why when I came in, we created the SOPs and SOGs (standard operating procedures and guides). And that is what we have in place today. So we do have rules and regulations that are in place.”

Another question that came up had been staffing levels for the fire department, and its ability to assemble crews to respond to fires around the clock.

“We’ve all had this conversation many, many times,” Fain said, adding that the department’s reliance on volunteer firefighters makes it well-nigh impossible to have adequate staffing on call at all times.

“It is a nationwide problem,” he said. “It is a problem that every volunteer fire department deals with, I don’t care who they are.”

With 33 people on staff, he said, “there’s not one of them that works an afternoon or an evening shift. Not a one. And the only way we’re going to fix that is… either go to a full time department, which we can’t afford to do, or we’re going to have to find some people who’ll work an afternoon and evening shift.”

Minutes of the May 6 meeting indicate that Finance Director Chelsey Lewis had told council that she had done some research with the help of an attorney, and had concluded that the village cannot pay firefighters more than $15 per run. Councilmember Spencer, however, had responded that “he had done some research, and in some circumstances, you can go over $15.”

Fain suggested at the May 20 meeting, however, that the real issue is finding some way, within a realistic budget, to attract and retain volunteers who are able and willing to leave their regular jobs at a moment’s notice to fight fires. His volunteers are reluctant to do this, he said, for fear of losing those jobs.

“Whether I write an excuse for them or not, they’re all taking that chance of losing their job,” he said. He contrasted this situation with the way things were in the 1960s through the 1980s, when, he said, “the companies in town… thought so highly of the fire department that they would allow their people to just drop what they were doing, walk out the door, go down the street and get on the truck. I wish that was still the case today, but it’s not.”

Yet another issue that had been discussed, Fain noted, was “this whole thing of voting for the officers” in the department, a notion he said is unworkable. The fire service is a paramilitary organization,” he explained. “So I’m going to tell you right now, there is not a paramilitary organization that is going to sit there and vote for their officers. It doesn’t work.”

More generally, Fain suggested that council’s recent discussions suggest an unwelcome desire on the part of some members to micromanage his department.

““You folks on council are here to figure out the problems of the village,” he advised. “You’re here to solve the big problems, looking long-term down the road, bringing projects in, promoting the community, and things like that. The operations of that fire department — those are mine… That’s my job.”

Spencer, who seems to have been the main source of criticism of the department, said he has no desire to exclude Fain from discussions about possible changes to the department — but also doesn’t agree wholly with his suggestion that council should take a hands-off approach.

“I believe there are issues that we all need to discuss, not just you,” he told Fain. “I disagree with you totally having everything. We all need to be in the discussion, because council needs to approve things that you do… There’s things that need to be addressed, with everybody, to make this fire department better.”

Spencer acknowledged that “I think that the firefighters need to have more money,” but added that “It’s not just the money. It’s other things, too, to make this whole thing work.”

Finance Director Lewis warned that labor department regulations put strong constraints on the village’s ability to increase firefighter pay. To make a firefighter full-time could actually lower their pay, she suggested, in that it would entail payments into such things as federal payroll taxes. Spencer suggested that more might be done with reimbursements for expenses such as fuel and training.

When another councilmember challenged Spencer to explain what his plan would be if the village were to fire Fain, Spencer denied vehemently that he’s thinking along those lines.

“I haven’t said one time, to get rid of him. I haven’t said that,” Spencer insisted. “The thing I keep saying is, how do we fix it? Because the volunteer fire department is a dying breed.”

Fain responded that in his view “the only way we’re going to fix this problem is doing what we’re doing right now” — namely, continuing to attract more firefighters, like the five new recruits he had announced earlier in the meeting.

“That’s the only way that we can solve this problem right now, is to recruit,” and perhaps also to come up with some kind of incentives to improve retention — “something to keep these guys, and make them want to show up.”

Email at jphillips@perrytribune.com