Fire Chief Mark Rohlfing on Thursday raised the possibility that he will recommend closing not one fire company next year, as had been proposed, but as many as three more in other parts of the city.
Rohlfing told aldermen that his department had planned to close one heavy apparatus company next year – either an engine or a ladder truck company with 15 firefighters – and continue brownouts at three other engine companies. Brownouts are temporary closures of firehouses.
Rohlfing said brownouts had become the new normal for the Fire Department. “In the foreseeable future we won’t bring brownouts back into service. My druthers would be to call them what they are. They are not in service,” Rohlfing said. There would be no layoffs, Rohlfing said, but closing one company would save the city $1.4 million in salaries and benefits through attrition.
He added that reductions in fire companies would not greatly affect response times.
Rohlfing told Ald. Michael Murphy, chairman of the Common Council’s Finance and Personnel Committee, and other aldermen that he would come up with a final recommendation in time for final consideration of Mayor Tom Barrett’s 2014 budget. Aldermen are scheduled to write amendments next week in time for final approval of the budget, and Murphy said the fire chief’s possible recommendation would be seriously considered.
As originally proposed, the closing of one fire company and the continued brownouts of three other companies would leave the department with 32 engine companies in 36 fire houses.
There was no immediate reaction from the Milwaukee Professional Fire Fighters Association Local 215. Dave Seager, the president of the firefighters’ union, was at the hearing when Rohlfing spoke but did not comment.
Rohlfing said the union understands that the “department has firetrucks that are not in service and their members have to jump from firehouse to firehouse because we have brownouts.”
Fire Department statistics indicate some fire companies have not been busy. At one engine company, firefighters responded to 403 calls in 2012, or one call about every 22 hours.
Also on Thursday, aldermen questioned Rohlfing and other top fire officials on the department’s workforce. There are 867 non-management sworn firefighters in the union, 80% of whom are white and 96% male.
According to a city budget document, despite the department’s hiring of 56 recruits and 39 fire cadets, who serve an apprenticeship of sorts to become firefighters, “diversity has been slow to expand.” Assistant Chief Gerard Washington, who is African-American, said recruiters find that potential candidates don’t see working as a firefighter as a viable profession. Many of the best and brightest opt for college and see firefighting as a low-paying and dangerous job. “Unfortunately, this profession isn’t for everyone,” Washington said.
Ald. Milele Coggs told Rohlfing and Washington that they needed to work harder to find qualified minority candidates.
“There must be better or creative, innovative ways to target an audience that would do well in the Fire Department,” she said.
Ald. Joe Dudzik was more blunt, saying the department’s marketing effort “sucks.” And he raised the issue of race in a white-dominated department, saying it was his impression that some white firefighters did not want to have a minority person next to them.
“Sad to say, that’s what I hear,” Dudzik said.
Ald. Nik Kovac was more restrained, saying people use code words in which they claim hiring minorities to be firefighters would lower department standards. “There are code words that are used a lot. I’m not sure racist is the right word. But having opinions that make me uncomfortable as a white man. What I have seen, it is there,” Kovac said.
Rohlfing acknowledged the problem existed.
“From the top down, we have a lot of really good people who are working to change that,” Rohlfing said. “There is an element out there.”
Washington, the assistant chief, said the department was taking the matter of race relations seriously. But he objected to such a broad categorization. “That paints a broad brush on all races that do an outstanding job,” he said.
