Riverside fire union wants city to boost department’s staffing
The Riverside fire union is calling for a plan for hiring more firefighters after the city’s budget did not include any additional funds to hire more firefighters or police officers, despite expectations from the police and fire departments they would be able to hire more workers after passing a 1% raise in income tax that went directly to police and fire.
Josh Gwin, president of the Riverside fire union and a member of the Riverside Fire Department, said the union had met with the city manager, Josh Rauch. Rauch told the fire union there wasn’t money to add staff in 2022 due to concerns about the longevity of the city’s finances.
Rauch said the result of the income tax passing meant more of the money collected in income tax goes straight to police and fire and results in a smaller general fund, which is where the rest of the city’s budget comes from.
“Part of what we are trying to do in this year’s budget is get to a place where we have stabilized the rest of the budget overall,” Rauch said.
The city has spent into its reserves for years, Rauch said, and it’s important to stop relying on reserves to make ends meet. It’s also not clear exactly how much money the levy will bring in as opposed to the city’s projections.
Both the police chief, Frank Robinson, and the fire chief, Dan Stitzel, said during the campaign for the levy that they expected the levy money would help them hire more police officers and firefighters.
The fire department is currently staffed by both part-time and fulltime firefighters. Stitzel said he would like to see the department become full-time as that would help with both attracting people to
work in the fire department and decrease the stress currently placed on firefighters. Fewer people want to work as part-time firefighters than full-time firefighters, Stitzel said, and often once a parttime staffer is fully trained they end up accepting a fulltime offer elsewhere.
Rauch said at a city work session on Nov. 10 that the city needed to shore up reserves and reduce spending due to the city’s financial situation. He proposed a 2022 budget that didn’t include extra money in the budget for police and fire personnel, but also cut spending elsewhere, including in infrastructure.
The 2022 budget does not immediately add police and fire staff in 2022, but Rauch said there is still a possibility of adding staff after the city has collected a year of taxes and knows how much the levy is bringing in.
During the campaign for the levy, the fire and police unions joined in campaigning for the levy, including creating signs for citizens to put in their front yards. Gwin said the union wanted to be public about what is going on since the fire department campaigned for the levy, and the fire department did not want the city to lose trust in them.
“But the biggest thing is this levy was put out on the precedence that we were going to add additional staffing, and then once it passed, there was no talks, no plans, no nothing on how you’re going to actually achieve that goal,” Gwin said.
Rauch said the city is working with the fire and police unions on a solution, but did not offer a specific timetable.
“We certainly understand the staffing pressures that our public safety departments are under,” Rauch said. “This budget really is oriented to get us to a stable place where we can start to work on those staffing adjustments in a way that’s sustainable because we’re we are not there currently.”