![]() ![]() ![]() Mayor Langfelder says he plans to sit down with the fire department, the union, and the budget office to discuss possible ways to restructure. Langfelder says he’s anticipating that to happen at the beginning of the next fiscal year in February.īut with all the necessary training, those firefighters may not hit the trucks until 2023. He says the pandemic played a role in the lack of hiring, but now, the city is looking to add ten firefighters. Langfelder said the city is looking to hire more this year. We asked Mayor Jim Langfelder, why not hire more firefighters to fill the need? Of those big groups hired in the 90s, 13 firefighters left in 2021-mostly retirements. We're starting to see the effects of that now. It gets more firefighters on the job fast, but the big classes can also create big problems later on with mass retirements. That was in the 1990s, and the classes that followed were also higher in number. “So when you need to really gain some ground, you can hire bigger bunches.” Training takes about ten months, and because of the necessary time and resources, it makes more financial sense to do it in groups, Blough says.īut data shows there have been times when more firefighters were needed quickly. The city hires firefighters in classes, which are usually groups of ten. “Every time they put another year off where they don’t hire, they’re causing themselves to have to bring on a larger and larger class,” Zummo explained. So far, the city hasn’t moved forward with plans to hire more firefighters. “I have asked for another class so that we can continue to do what we do in the fashion the citizens of Springfield are used to,” Chief Brandon Blough said. This graph shows the budgeted number of firefighters for each year, or the number of firefighters the city pays for, versus the actual number of firefighters reporting for duty that year. In recent years, the department has never had as many firefighters as they're budgeted for. Zummo says the missing 20 firefighters is enough to fill two small firehouses. The department currently only has 195 firefighters, Zummo says, which is nowhere near the 215 they receive funding for. “There’s a lot of times, right now, where guys are being asked to even stick around and work the following day and work another 12 hours,” said Local 37 union president Vince Zummo.ĭepartment leaders assure us that they do have enough manpower to respond to emergencies, partly due to an agreement with the city that a set number of firefighters have to be “on” at all times.īut they get stretched thin when multiple emergencies happen at once, and if there were to be a natural disaster, they’d need outside help. Springfield firefighters work 24-hour shifts, and with only 12 new firefighters since 2017, it means the current staff have to step up. The fire department is now warning that it's taking thousands of hours of overtime to meet the needs of the community. (WICS/WRSP) - The City of Springfield hasn't gotten new firefighters in years, despite an increase in retirements. ![]()
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