Fire Chief: Staffing Cuts = Russian Roulette

, to help balance next year’s budget, Fire Chief Michael MacDonald said public safety could be compromised.

“It will have a big impact on the department,” MacDonald said.  “(It) is going to be devastating. It’s going to be very difficult to run this department. … We’re playing Russian roulette right now.”

As it stands now, MacDonald schedules six firefighters per 24-hour shift. Four are at and two are at .

Many fire departments operate with minimum manpower that is laid out in employee contracts. Wyandotte firefighters agreed to eliminate minimum staffing years ago.

At that time, MacDonald lowered the staffing from eight when minimum standards were in existence to the six that are there now.

While the city is under no contractual obligations to keep the number of on-duty firefighters to six per shift, MacDonald said, he cannot recommend that it go any lower.

“It’s not safe to go below six,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of options. I, in good conscience, can’t drop this department below six.”

When MacDonald became chief in January 2005, he said, the department was spending $450,000 in overtime. He was able to reduce that to $125,000 in 2006 and ever since then, has managed to keep overtime to about $60,000 a year.

So far in this budget year, which ends Sept. 30, he said, he’s spent about $80,000 on overtime costs. The spike this year is attributed to five firefighters being off on long-term medical leaves, he said.

If the department is cut, however, he said, those figures could rise even higher in future years.

“The potential is there to drive the overtime up,” he said. “If we further reduce this department, something has got to give.”

MacDonald is a proponent of fire consolidation and said he continues to talk with officials from Southgate and Lincoln Park regarding some sort of joint operation. While a Downriver-wide fire consolidation plan was close to being finalized about three years ago, it never got beyond the talking stages. MacDonald said he’s hopeful that will change as all municipalities are struggling for dollars.

“Everybody is in the same boat right now,” he said. “I’m very pro consolidation. … I do believe in looking into a lot of other ways.”

Peterson said that’s going to be a necessity.

“We know we cannot continue to operate the same as we have in the past,” the mayor said.

While the fire department can charge businesses for repeated false alarms, MacDonald said he’s always been ““skittish about charging alarm fees” to some entities, namely BASF and .

Those two companies make up the majority of false alarm calls, which in total account for about 10 percent of all calls made to the department, MacDonald said.

At Monday’s budget session, resident Richard Patrick encouraged MacDonald to begin recouping the money he’s eligible to get .

Patrick focused his attention on the hospital, which as a nonprofit does not pay property taxes to the city.

“I know they are an employer and that’s wonderful, but they also are using our services,” Patrick said. “It’s time for sacred cows to end. We need to look at all sources of revenue.”

He encouraged city officials to hold off on any cuts at the fire department while consolidation talks are under way.

“We can’t cut these firefighter positions right now and expect to consolidate,” Patrick said.

Instead, he said, he would prefer to see the city cut in other areas, including selling that the city owns and operates on Biddle.

“When your city is in trouble and you need to cut costs or whatever, it makes sense to me that we cut back severely on or ,” Patrick said.

Councilwoman Sheri Sutherby-Fricke echoed that thought, recommending that the city look at selling all city-owned properties, including the two historic homes. Not only will the city reap money from the sales, she said, the properties would then go back on the tax rolls as the new owner would have to pay property taxes on the buildings.

“It’s time to sell properties, especially in the downtown area,” Sutherby-Fricke said.

City officials will continue their budget talks at 5 p.m. Wednesday when they tackle the budget recommendations of the engineering and departments.