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Friday, February 10, 2012
News Story about Sacramento Fire Department
by Jim Doucette, published on April 3, 2009 at 4:45 PM
Storyline: Fire Safety
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This past Wednesday, CBS 13 ran a story on their evening news called the Scoop. I have never responded to this type of journalism, but I owe it to the citizens that we protect to give you the response from the Sacramento Fire Department. First I would encourage everyone who reads this article to visit CBS 13’s website, find the story and read it. It is in their “Special Investigations” section.
I will now give you the Fire Departments version. But first let me say this,” If the Sacramento Fire Department or any of its employees ever do anything that is not in the best interest of the citizens that we are sworn to protect, we will always do everything in our power to correct, or make right, anything that we do that is not in the publics best interest”. We always welcome the public’s criticism and input.
The lead to the story stated that the Firefighters are racking up overtime and soaking the taxpayers. This is not true. Yes we do have overtime, and some of our Firefighters work a lot of it. But it has been proven on many occasions that to staff extra Firefighters to fill any vacancy, it is more cost effective to do it with overtime than to do it with extra Firefighters.
The reporter states that if you spend anytime around any of our Fire Houses you will hear tales of Sick Leave abuse! I have worked in Sacramento’s Fire Houses for almost 29 years and I have never heard anyone speak about calling in sick to benefit another Firefighter so that he or she could work the overtime.
The reporter states that some of our Fire Houses could operate with 3 person staffing versus 4 person staffing. He did not say which fire stations could do this. Cutting our staffing to a very busy Fire Department is only going to reduce response times and potentially cost lives and property.
He speaks about a 10 or 12 hour shift and how we may have to change from a 24 hour shift. Our Firefighters work 48 consecutive hours than they are off for 96 hours. Going to a 10 or 12 hour shift would result in hiring more Firefighters, thus costing more.
He also states that the Firefighters might have to change their lifestyle and that many of us live far away from the City and have second jobs. Some live in the City and some do not. As far as his comment about second jobs, back when I was hired in 1980, many Firefighters did have second jobs. But today it is not that common.
I did mention to the reporter that I do know of a few Firefighters who have second jobs. A few teach Fire Technology and Emergency Medical Classes part time. A couple of our Firefighters are Flight Medics on Air Ambulances on their days off. And I also mentioned that we have three young men serving their country in Afghanistan in the California National Guard. The comment about our Lifestyle, I do not understand.
In all honesty, the only factual part of the story was the statement from Chief Ray Jones. He said,” The Sacramento Fire Department does not have a sick leave abuse problem.” “Our Firefighters, on average call in sick four times each year.”
Thank you for your time and feel free to contact me anytime with comments or questions….
Captain Jim Doucette jdoucette@sfd.cityofsacramento.org
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http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1489816.html
According to this story, 41 out of 50 of the top overtime earners were from the fire department. Isn't that indicative of some kind of staffing problem when you have people working *90* hour weeks? Is the cost-savings in having people spend more than 50 percent of their week at the station so much better than hiring an extra body, that it's worth the reduced efficiency that typically comes with constant hours?
Some of our Firefightes choose to work overtime. Rarely is overtime "forced" on anyone.It is less expensive to use overtime than to staff extra's. This way of operating a Fire Department is very typicalin the United States.As far as efficiency, we have never had an incident where there was an accident, or some other type of problem due to working a lot of hours. Howevere it is something the Fire Administration continues to look at. Because of the current budget problem, the only overtime authorized is for staffing. The only real alternative to this is to close fire stations, and we do not want to do this. We are already closing an Engine Company each and every day on a rotational basis. Thanks and I appreciate your comment.
A better segment would have been how much mandatory overtime public workers, such as firefighters, are required to work, then comparing the cost of mandatory overtime pay versus hiring additional firefighters. Those would be interesting numbers to see, rather than a dubious claim of firefighter "sick abuse."