This coming Monday night the City Council will vote to sustain or over-ride Mayor Dave Schmidt’s veto of a number of line item expenditures of the recently-passed 2011-12 City budget in order to save $650,000 and reduce the City’s property tax increase built into the new budget.

Among the line-items Schmidt vetoed are the funds to fill one of two vacancies in the Fire Department.  Schmidt’s goal was to cut the substantial overtime costs that department has been ringing up without negating that savings by hiring another full-time employee.  According to Schmidt, he vetted that situation with Police Chief Mike Zywanski before Schmidt vetoed that fighter position, and no public safety concerns were expressed.

But at this past Monday night’s COW meeting, Park Ridge resident and former Des Plaines fire chief Tom Farinella called the resulting Fire Department staffing “irresponsible.”  Farinella, citing a variety of fire protection standards, claims that because Park Ridge needs a minimum of 15 ready-for-duty firefighters and paramedics on every shift, it actually needs 18 available firefighters/paramedics to account for the possibility that as many as 3 might be unavailable at any given time due to illness, injury, vacation or personal matters.  

The term “irresponsible” is an easy one to throw around, in part because it truly is descriptive of the way government handles many of its duties – especially the way public officials spend other people’s money.  That’s the way we regularly use “irresponsible,” and we’ve got 9 years (out of the past 10) of deficit spending by the City (despite annual tax increases that met or exceeded the rate of inflation) as the most notable evidence to prove that point.

But Mr. Farinella’s use of that term takes on special meaning because he used it in the context of the word “unsafe” – even if he didn’t take the logical next step of actually explaining exactly what he meant by “unsafe.”

Frankly, we’re skeptical of Farinella’s conclusion because, historically, government bureaucrats (and retired bureaucrats like Farinella) have embraced the “peak-demand” approach to staffing.  That way, on those rare occasions of peak demand, nobody has to really extend themselves to deal with it; and life gets even better during the vast majority of those off-peak hours when departments are effectively over-staffed.  Plus, bureaucrat-managers can cite to  bigger staffs to underscore their importance and argue for more compensation. 

So what’s not to like about over-staffing – so long as you’re not the taxpayer footing the bill?

We recall the hue and cry a year ago when the City cut four police officers.  “Unsafe” was one of the words used back then, too, with a similar degree of vagueness.  But a year later, Park Ridge is not in the midst of a crime spree; and, to the best of our knowledge, even the most cautious villagers are not locking up their women, children and cattle after dark to keep the maraurders, pillagers and rustlers at bay.

But if the mayor’s line item veto of the one firefighter position truly creates a significant, definable safety risk to Park Ridge residents or to the firefighters themselves, we need to know it.  Which is why we question Farinella’s failure to describe those safety risks in concrete terms instead of his bare, conclusory “unsafe” pronouncement; and we also wonder why Chief Z didn’t state, then and there, whether he agreed or disagreed with Farinella, and why.

After decades of watching these Kabuki-like performances play out at City Hall, we’ll hazard a guess that the point of Farinella’s exercise was in large measure political: we recall seeing him at City Hall a year ago when cuts in Fire Department staffing were being discussed, so this little bit of fear-mongering could have been intended to give aldermen something to hang their veto-override hats on when it comes to that particular line item.  

From the sound of things, outgoing Ald. (and Public Safety Committe chair) Frank Wsol is already buying into it.  “No one wants to see the public put at risk because we are trying to balance the budget on the back of the Fire Department service,” said Wsol afterward.

Neither do we, alderman (and that’s a nice sound-bite you’ve got there).  So why didn’t you ask Mr. Farinella and Chief Z to elucidate their positions when you had the chance Monday night? 

UPDATE (4/14/11)

The following is a comment we received from Mr. Farinella:

As I stated during my comments at the April 11th Committee of the Whole Meeting, do to work responsibilities, I cannot attend the April 18th City Council Meeting.  I thanked the City Council for the opportunity to address this issue at the April 11th Committee of the Whole Meeting.

During the discussion at the Committee of the Whole Meeting on Monday night, Fire Chief Zywanski, Alderman DiPietro and I specifically referred to National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 1710, Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations By Career Fire Departments.

NFPA 1710   5.2.3.2 Initial Full Alarm Assignment Capability states: 
5.2.3.2.1  The fire department shall have the capability to deploy an initial full alarm assignment within an 8-minute response time to 90 percent of the incidents as established in Chapter 4.
5.2.3.2.2  The initial full alarm assignment shall provide for the following (edited for  space):
1   Incident Commander
1   firefighter to establish an uninterrupted water supply and water flow application
4   firefighters to establish two hose lines (attack & backup)
2   firefighters to provide support for each hose line, provide hydrant hookup, assist in line lays, utility control (gas & electric) and forcible entry
2   firefighters for each victim search & rescue team
2   firefighters for a minimum of one ventilation team
1   firefighter as an aerial ladder operator, if aerial device is used in operations
2   firefighters to function as an initial rapid intervention crew

NFPA 1710, which is a Nationally recognized standard, clearly states that a MINIMUM of 14-15 firefighters should be responding to an incident.  This is the number of firefighters necessary to respond to a typical single-family residential structure fire and be capable of performing all of the necessary responsibilities for the safety of the public and firefighters.

In my 30 year career, 11 as Fire Chief, I have NEVER used the term “irresponsible” loosely.  The Park Ridge Fire Department currently has a minimum staffing level of 12; 2-3 below the Nationally recognized standard for initial response to a structure fire.  Since the 1970’s, the Fire Service has efficiently used automatic aid and mutual aid to supplement their response to Additional Alarm Assignments.  I sincerely believe that each municipality bears the responsibility to adequately respond to an Initial Alarm Assignment, as described above.

Many municipalities decide to supplement their staffing through overtime, in lieu of hiring a full time firefighter.  This is an acceptable practice, so long as current staffing is capable of efficiently filling the vacant position(s) and the budget adequately provides for the overtime expenditure.  The problem is, you cannot have it both ways!  You cannot reduce overtime expenditures and not fill position vacancies.  With all due respect to Mayor Schmidt, apparently, this is what he is trying to do.  I respectfully request the City Council to override the mayor’s veto to only fill one of the two vacant positions in the fire department.

I trust that the above information sufficiently and responsibly supports my position.
 
Respectfully submitted,
Tom Farinella
Park Ridge Resident
Retired Fire Chief, Des Plaines Fire Department

_______________________________

PublicWatchdog appreciates Mr. Farinella’s clarification. 

As we understand it, compliance with NFPA 1710 is not mandatory but merely recommended.  We are unaware of any adverse adminstrative consequences attendant to non-compliance. 

Our research also indicates that the NFPA’s adoption of Standard 1710 was driven substantially by the Int’l Association of Fire Fighters, a/k/a the firefighters’ union, whose website touts it as “one of the most active lobbying organizations in Washington; its Political Action Committee, FIREPAC, is among the top one percent of the more than 4,000 federal PACs in the country.”  It also touts its “capacity to create and support legislation on behalf of first responders” both in Washington D.C. and before the Canadian Parliament, including “[c]ollective bargaining rights, staffing, line-of-duty deaths, health care, pensions and safety-issues.”

Perhaps that explains why the NFPA 1710 “staffing” requirements have been described by critics as the “firefighters’ full employment act.”  While the IAFF’s prominence in adoption of NFPA 1710 doesn’t make those requirements inherently invalid, it should at least call into question whether their purpose is as much for “featherbedding” as for public safety.  

More importantly, however, is that although Mr. Farinelli opines “that each municipality bears the responsibility to adequately respond to an Initial Alarm Assignment,” NFPA 1710 expressly allows compliance with its staffing requirements through the use of “mutual aid” (assistance upon request pursuant to certain protocols) and “automatic aid” (immediate joint dispatch and response) arrangements for multiple jurisdictions’ joint and reciprocal deployment of firefighting and/or EMS personnel and equipment, like what we understand Park Ridge already has with neighboring communities.  

We reiterate our concern for the safety of the public and our firefighters/EMS personnel.  But we are equally concerned with the inherently-flawed, old-style politics that spurred the growth of government to the point where it has become economically unsustainable – unless our goal is to bequeath to our children, grandchildren and great grandchilden double-digit trillions of dollars of systemic, institutionalized debt that cuts across federal, state and local governments.

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