Mayor Light takes on firefighters and overtime

Editor's note: The city of Norwalk and firefighters are at odds with the overtime costs of the department. Mayor Dave Light had this response Friday to the situation. Both sides talk about situation in Saturday's The Weekender edition: "The city of Norwalk employees 121 full-time and 138 part-time dedicated employees who have done an amazing job providing high level of services to our community. Since the recession in 2008, our city has lost a considerable amount of much needed revenue that is required to maintain these services. Previous mayors and city council were tasked with the unfortunate job of trying to balance a budget while still attending to much needed infrastructure improvements, mandated EPA upgrades, drug epidemics, increased health insurance costs and providing the best safety forces possible — all of which impact the quality of life in our community. "While many full-time positions were eliminated along the way to reduce the budget while still maintaining the services, the city continues to deficit spend. The projected deficit for 2020 was $830,000 and $1,351,967 for 2021. The largest expenses, by far, out of the General Fund is for Police and Fire. Had it not been for CARES Act funds, unfortunate layoffs would have taken place. I have challenged department heads to do more with less and to save every dollar possible while still delivering the best possible service. Almost every department, including the Police, accepted the challenge and have done an amazing job reducing their budgets. "I retired after 34 years in public safety from the City of Norwalk — the last 8 as your Chief of Police. I would certainly never do anything to compromise the safety of our citizens. I sincerely believe the majority of our citizens realize this. I have said from day one in office that I wanted the best equipped, best trained safety forces that we can afford. The fire department has been difficult. The costs of their overtime is the largest of any city department. "We have received little or no cooperation in reducing their overtime, which continued to soar out of control, until Fire Chief Ron Luttrell and newly appointed Assistant Chief, Dan Strayer arrived. They have been working with the administration to come up with ideas to reduce overtime and have been a pleasure to work with. "While analyzing their budget, their call-in policies appear to be a huge part of the problem. Norwalk firemen work 11, 24- hour days a month. Here's their overtime expenses, by contract, for 2021: THREE HOUR CALL-IN: Captain — $55.50 per hour, $166.50 Lieutenant — $50.45 per hour, $151.35 Firefighter — $45.86 per hour, $137.58 TWENTY- FOUR HOUR SHIFT COVERAGE: Captain — $39.65 per hour, X24 $951.60 Lieutenant — $36.03 per hour, X24 $864.72 Firefighter — $32.76 per hour, X24 $786.24 "One doesn't have to be an accountant to determine why their overtime budget has been over $200,000 for the past two years and will surpass that again this year. We have asked Chief Luttrell and Assistant Chief Strayer to look into hiring part-time firefighters to assist with covering shifts for 24-hour periods to reduce some of the above shift coverage overtime. Even though several Norwalk firefighters pick up 24-hour shifts at other area departments for additional income, apparently some of them are opposed to this. "Another remedy would be to change from 24 hour shifts to 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. Twelve-hour shifts would reduce overtime by 50% while 8-hour shifts would reduce overtime by 66 2/3%. We find absolutely no benefit for working 24-hour shifts other than 'That's the way we've always done it.' "The City of Norwalk got out of the EMS business many years ago for good reasons. We have contracted with North Central EMS, owned by Fisher-Titus, since then, they have done an amazing job. Several years ago, under previous administration at Fisher-Titus, there were mentions of FTMC getting out of the EMS business. During that time, the Norwalk Fire Department began hiring paramedic-certified firefighters. They currently have 8. The last contract with North-Central EMS provides for the Norwalk Fire Department to provide back-up EMS service when the primary North-Central ambulance is out of service AND they do not have another ambulance available. An ambulance, owned by NCEMS, is at the Norwalk Fire Department. This ambulance has been used only 1% of the time. "Cleveland Metro Health provides medical direction for North-Central EMS, which includes Norwalk Fire, as they have the ambulance owned by NCEMS. Law Director, Stu O'Hara, Safety-Service Director, Mike White and I have attended several meetings with the management from Fisher-Titus and NCEMS as the contract between them and the City will expire in less than a year. During one meeting, two physicians from Metro Health, along with the EMS Coordinator for the Metro Health system attended. One area of concern was the competence of Norwalk Firefighters in performing medical procedures in areas they do not perform on a regular basis. This led to a request, from Metro Health, for the training the Norwalk firefighters have attended. Surprisingly, the City found out the absentee rate for the Norwalk Fire Department for attending medical training, over a three-year period, was 85-90%. This means that the medical training provided by Metro Health was available, but not attended by the Norwalk firefighters. "This week the Safety-Service Director White directed the Norwalk Fire Department to limit their self-dispatching in an attempt to reduce the redundancy in services that North- Central EMS is perfectly capable of handling themselves. It is still permissible for Norwalk Firefighters to respond to any and every call that they are dispatched to or when NCEMS requests their assistance. "The emotional social media post Firefighter Hillman sent out was not factual and did nothing more than induce panic throughout our community. "They're going to cut off or delay oxygen to patients in respiratory distress" is simply not true! The statement he made "The bureaucrat's downtown are ordering us not to respond when a baby is choking or when a loved one is having chest pain or trouble breathing" is completely NOT TRUE. "The Norwalk Police Dispatch OR North Central EMS can send the fireman or request them at any time. This was included in the email from Safety-Service Director, Mike White: "In addition, to the foregoing, Norwalk Fire Department personnel shall respond to and provide medical services (EMS) as requested by North Central EMS." Only the automatic, self-dispatching has been limited. "In summary, the City Administration will certainly not compromise the lives or safety of our citizens. North-Central EMS will be the primary responder. They will assess the situation and call Norwalk Fire Department when needed. There are no restrictions placed on this protocol." Respectfully, Mayor Dave Light