The gold standard is three to five minutes, and that’s the emergency response time residents of York County have received for years.
“If you’re responding to a fire or a heart attack, three to five minutes is everything,” said Don Dinse, a retired York firefighter who serves as president of IAFF Local 2498, which represents fire and life safety personnel in York, Poquoson, Williamsburg and James City. “In three to five minutes you’re saving heart muscle. In three to five minutes you’re keeping a fire in one room of a house. And citizens expect that level of service they’ve had for decades.”
Maintaining that quality of service and improving the quality of the job for employees of the York County Department of Fire and Life Safety has become an issue that’s circulated locally through social media and become a prominent point of public interest as the Board of Supervisors and county administrator’s office develop the fiscal year 2018 budget.
While the issue has been discussed by York officials and addressed in public meetings and is expected to continue to be a hot topic at the next budget public hearing, there is no consensus on the severity of staffing challenges.
With staffing at current levels, Dinse said the quality of work is not sustainable and that something bad happening on the job was imminent, a point that was made public in February through a post in a York County Facebook group with about 10,000 members. Dinse said these problems are not new, and the amount of overtime and wages that are still hampered by the recession drive down morale.
Fire Chief Steve Kopczyinski said there was not a public safety issue or threat to the quality of emergency services in the county. But he acknowledged that the department did face staffing challenges and that the month leading up to the Facebook post required a significant amount of overtime, which he called an “unusual anomaly.”
As a 24-hour operation, the department has to maintain minimum staffing levels at all times, so if someone calls in sick or goes on family or military leave, his or her place must be filled, Kopczyinski said. “Of course we don’t like to give overtime,” he said, “but in a 24-hour operation, it’s going to occur.”
Kopczyinski said all fire and rescue positions are filled, including three “overhires” in case of unexpected turnover and an anticipated retirement. Some positions are also filled by recent recruit school graduates who are in the orientation process and personnel who are undergoing training.
Dinse said this level of staffing isn’t adequate, leading to overwork and causing people to leave or consider leaving the department.
He said the staffing problem goes back years, but it was quantified about 15 years ago when the department found it was 62 people short of the National Fire Protection Association 1710 standard for personnel. The Board of Supervisors then made hiring a priority, and the department started growing.
But once the Great Recession hit, the hiring plan halted, along with the county’s pay step plan that showed employees what raises they could expect as their tenures went on.
Now the department is short of NFPA 1710 by about 40 people, according to Dinse, and the step plan has not been made up or replaced. Across the county, there was no pay increase from fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2013.
County Administrator Neil Morgan, who came to York about two years ago, said the county just reached its revenue total from before the recession, not accounting for inflation, so it is just now at the point where it can look at addressing the years pay was frozen.
Morgan said the step plan is not coming back because it was knocked out of whack after the recession, so the county is investigating new options. He said the county was looking at staffing, salary and benefits for all county employees so that the county remains competitive with other employers in terms of recruiting and retention.
Kopczynski said he hoped to start hiring to approach NFPA 1710 but still said the department had adequate staffing for what it could control. He added that he hears of issues with assigning extra overtime in his talks with local fire chiefs.
Dinse and Kopczynski have both spoken with York officials about staffing leading up to the budget season. Before the post on Facebook attracted the attention of residents and local television stations, officials had brought up staffing in the department at meetings and retreats when discussing the upcoming budget.
Kopczynski was asked at a Dec. 20 public hearing if a proposed senior living development would strain the department. He said no.
Staffing came up again at a board retreat on Jan. 27. The supervisors talked about funding new positions and relayed that Kopczynski had asked to hire more people. They said a possible need for more firefighters and medics may not be evident because of consistently high reviews of the department. “They may be victims of their own success,” said Jeff Wassmer, vice chairman of the Board of Supervisors.
Wassmer said that based on his talks with the department and observations at the fire station, he feels there is a shortage of firefighters but not a risk to public safety. He said adding personnel is a priority, and he hopes the board can address pay and benefits.
“The county has got to be a great place to live and a great place to work,” Wassmer said.
He repeated his priority to help fire personnel at a Feb. 21 Board of Supervisors meeting, which Dinse and about 20 supporters of IAFF Local 2498 attended.
Dinse said at a minimum he wants fire and life safety employees to receive a 3 percent pay raise and for the county to hire eight new people.
Kopczynski said the county applied for a grant to fund six new positions. Any adjustments to staffing, pay or benefits are still in the works, and no official figures have been presented.
Dinse has not addressed the board publicly in the current or previous budget seasons but said he feels he has the support of the supervisors he has spoken with. He and several family members of York firefighters plan to attend Tuesday’s work session on the fiscal 2018 budget. A budget public hearing is scheduled for April 18.
Reyes can be reached by phone at 757-247-4692.
