Council votes against boost in funding
A day after fire Chief Steve Dongworth warned city council that proposed budget cuts could result in slower response times for emergencies in the inner city, council voted to restore funding Tuesday.
The city had been proposing a multimillion-dollar cut to the operating budget for the Calgary Fire Department.
The reduction would have resulted in the elimination of a heavy rescue truck at the Ogden fire station and 10 full-time jobs associated with running the apparatus.
Dongworth warned councillors that pulling the rescue unit out of Ogden would mean it would take two to three minutes longer to assemble a first-alarm response to “serious and escalating ” fires.
Removing the rescue unit would also pose a risk when Ogden’s primary engine was busy, since there would be no local backup to respond to medical calls, said Dongworth.
“We’re doing everything we can, we’re not just standing still, we’re trying to do everything we can to manage with less,” Dongworth told council members Tuesday. “But there are cracks that are doubtless appearing now.”
In response, Coun. Gian Carlo-Carra proposed restoring $1.7 million to the fire department’s budget.
“While we are talking about cutting to the bone out of respect for the economic situation that we find ourselves in, I think we’re into the bone,” Carra said.
“I respectfully request that we add this budget so we can restore the base level of service that Calgarians have come to expect and that they deserve.”
Councillors ultimately voted 8-7 to restore the budget Tuesday, a move that was welcomed by the fire chief.
Cutting the southeast unit, he said, “would have resulted in a degradation in performance that impacts the whole city, because we would have had to move all our other trucks around to compensate.”
Dongworth said the fire department is already struggling to meet an 11-minute target for response times, which currently average 13 minutes and 45 seconds.
“That’s a long time when your house is on fire, especially for new homes, which can see fires double in size in just 30 seconds.”
A majority of the proposed cut to the fire department’s budget was as a result of the service no longer being contracted to respond to calls at the Calgary Airport, as well as municipal staff taking over maintenance of city fire halls.