Fire chief braces for more budget cuts next year

Plan includes cutting one engine company

Days after a massive fire tore through a historic Milwaukee church, Fire Chief Mark Rohlfing told council members he is preparing for budget cuts.

Rohlfing said his proposed 2019 budget includes cutting one engine company, which would affect 15 firefighter positions.

He stressed the potential cuts would not result in layoffs, but would instead be “lost positions” — vacant job openings that would be eliminated. The result would save about $1.1 million.

“That’s very concerning,” Ald. Chantia Lewis said.

Rohlfing disclosed the proposal before the council’s Public Safety and Health Committee on Thursday, after the president of the firefighters’ union spoke to the committee about lagging response times after six stations closed because of budget shortfalls this year.

Rohlfing said the department still has an average response time of less than three minutes for the first engine on scene.

“Painfully honest: Would I like six more rigs and does that do a better job with our response time?” Rohlfing said. “Yes, it certainly does.”

“Can I put more firefighters on the street to put in smoke detectors and show up at festivals and do fire prevention? Yes, I certainly can,” he continued. “With the reduced number of apparatus, can we still meet our mission? Yes, we can.”

The budget process still has a long way to go; Mayor Tom Barrett usually releases his proposed city budget in September and it must be approved by the Common Council by November.

Mike Bongiorno, president of Milwaukee Professional Fire Fighters Local 215, described four “greater alarm” fires in recent weeks that he said barely met or fell short of national standards for response times.

For a greater alarm fire, the department should have 27 personnel on the scene within eight minutes, he said.

❚ On April 14, an apartment fire on S. 43rd St. south of Lincoln Ave. had 12 firefighters on the scene at the eightminute mark. The 27th firefighter did not arrive until 17 minutes into the fire.

❚ On May 2, a residential fire on N. Cambridge Ave. on the city’s east side had 27 firefighters on the scene about 15 seconds after the 8-minute mark.

❚ On May 15, a large fire at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church downtown had enough personnel on the scene about 15 seconds after the 8minute mark.

❚ On May 16, the Fire Department was called to an apartment fire on N. 39th St. where people were “jumping from the windows,” he said. At the 8minute mark, there were 21 firefighters on the scene.

In 2017, the Fire Department’s budget was $121 million. This year, it’s down to $111 million and the capital budget was also cut, Bongiorno said.

He urged the department to use FireCARES, a system to analyze Fire Department and community data to gauge risk and evaluate how a department is allocating resources.

The department doesn’t use FireCARES because it already uses a similar system, Rohlfing told the committee.

The chief said he had not seen the union’s data, but said the department typically uses the nine-minute-and-20-second standard. That accounts for the time it takes firefighters to get their gear on and eight minutes of travel time.

Rohlfing won reappointment later Thursday at a meeting of the Fire and Police Commission. The board unanimously approved giving him another four-year term.