At their June 16 meeting city council members agreed to hold off on a resolution that would have changed the table of organization for city fire fighters after nearly 50 firefighters, union officials and others protested the change.
Council President Vincent Lo Re, Jr. suggesting tabling the motion until the entire council could be updated on fire department concerns.
“I have met with many people and learned a lot about this,” Lo Re said. “”I don’t think we should act on this until other council members have the same chance I have to get more information.”
Many firefighters and union officials spoke out opposing a change in a personnel ordinance, claiming the change could lead to additional fire house closings, dangerous situations for firefighters and loss of promotions.
City officials were seeking to adjust the table of organization – a document that details the desired number of needed employees in each position. The change would allow the city to hire up to the number listed for each rank and position, avoiding a possible lawsuit that could force the city to fill out the ranks of the department to the number stipulated by the table of organization.
Fire fighters argued that the department manpower is already below the numbers necessary to keep all of the seven fire houses open all of the time. Some firefighters believed the change of ordinance would allow the city to keep the number depleted as a budget cutting measure. Police and fire salaries make up the largest part of the city’s budget.
The city has not hired any new fire fighters since 1999, despite the loss of more than 30 fire fighters – some of whom left in 2003 because of an early retirement package.
The change comes at a time when the city faces a discrimination lawsuit from two police sergeants over failure to promote people within the table of organization. Law Department Director Jay Coffey said the administration – because of changes in the command structure of the Police Department at the time – failed to make the changes to the ordinance.
This left the city open to a lawsuit
Because the city is facing a lawsuit over the police TO, Coffey said the city decided to change the fire department TO as well, to avoid a similar lawsuit.
Since the city has not yet filled up the ranks of its fire department, the city had thought to make a similar language change to the fire department, giving the city the option as to how many people the city might hire and how many promotions would be offered.
But fire fighters reacted negatively to the proposal saying that the low staffing levels would eventually lead to a slackening in service and risk of injury and death to residents and firefighters.
“We have not replaced a person since 1999,” said Jason Verdon, a firefighter and trustee of Union Local 11 questioned the change saying that the city had previously established the numbers for the fire department’s table of organization in 2003. “Nineteen people retired in 2003.”
Verdon said firehouses have been routinely closed, sometimes as many as two firehouses a day, leaving the city vulnerable. He said shortages of staff in the Jersey City Fire Department make people uncertain about what might happen if Bayonne calls for mutual aid.
“We’ve been promised the department would be replenished,” Verdon said, adding that each deadline for hiring has been put off.
Others also had problems with the change in TO.
“The table of organization is not something that is random, but well thought out,” Former Deputy Chief Joseph Hurley said. “It is not followed, the department would be disorganized.”
He said the TO outlines areas of responsibility, and provides people with information and resources that will avoid injury or death. Hurley asked if there was no other way in which the city could ease its financial burden.
Like many of the other firefighters that spoke out at the meeting, Hurley noted that the level of responsibility for the fire department has increased, even as the number of fire fighters has decreased. New training is required, and new concerns have arisen, such as aspects of hazardous materials and terrorism. He and others noted that the city has just opened a cruise port with ships arriving and departing carrying as many as 5,000 people, and this as required new training for the department. He said the more short handed the department is the more likely injuries will rise.
Closing fire houses not unusual
During a separate interview, Fire Director Patrick E. Boyle said closing firehouses was not unusual, but said that often when the staff did not meet minimum needs for operation, the department would close a house for maintenance.
Boyle said the department has not hired any new employees since 1999 when a federal grant permitted the department to hire 30 fire fighters. This grant was awarded to the city in anticipation of the city taking over the 450-acre Military Ocean Terminal, where decaying buildings and other issues required an increase in staff.
Boyle said the current table of organization has 28 vacancies, with two more firefighters part of the military reserves destined for service in Iraq. Added to the long term injuries or illnesses, the department is about 35 short.
Boyle said he has kept the Mayor abreast of the situation through conversations and memos, calling the situation “not ideal.”
He said the city has several mutual aid options, including Jersey City, North Hudson Regional, Hoboken, and Harrison.
Setting the record straight Mayor Joseph Doria, who watched the council proceedings on his office television, came into to speak during the public portion.
Doria said the city is caught in the middle, between tax payers who want to keep taxes down and the obligation to the fire companies to make certain they are adequately staffed.
City officials, however, said by having fixed numbers for each position, the city would have a gun to its head and no ability to modify costs.
By implementing early retirement last year and holding back on replacing those firefighters, the city lowered its overhead for a short time.
The fixed number was always an illusion.
Despite the hope of firefighters to fill the ranks of the table of organization, the city has always operated as if the numbers were flexible. Chief Financial officer Terrance Malloy said the city over the last 25 years has allowed ranks to rise and fall according to financial ability to pay. The resolution simply makes the language of the law live up to the practice.
Doria said part of the hold up for hiring has to be put on President George W. Bush, who has halted the implementation of federal legislation that would provide municipalities with salary grants to hire fire fighters.
This legislation called the “Firefighter Investment and Response Enhancement Act,” was introduced in 1999 that would provide grants to local fire departments, but has not been funded in any of President Bush’s budgets.
Doria said the grants could provide similar relief to Bayonne as the Federal COPS program that paid for municipalities to hire police leaving the municipalities to pick up the salary later when the grants ran out.
Doria said he intends to hire firefighters and to refill the ranks when the budget allows. Doria said he always intended to maintain the levels of the department, and even increased the number of firefighters when he first took office in 1998. But he said tax payers have demanded to keep down taxes, and the uniformed services make up a large part of the annual budget.
“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too,” he said. “We either keep down taxes or hire firefighters.”
He said there is a need for additional firefighters, and he will hire them.
“But we need to balance the needs of the fire department and the needs of the department,” he said.
The issue is really about promotions While fire fighters touted the issue of safety, the problems in the department have been going on for some time with no public outcry.
The protest over safety came with proposing a modified table of organization that would not fix the number of officers. This means members in the lower ranks would not be guaranteed promotions just because the TO has so many positions set aside.
Several fire fighters said hardworking firefighters would become demoralized if they could not look forward towards promotion as their reward.
Hurley said the change seems to fly in the face of civil service laws, and warned that if workers did not have promotions to look forward to, it would “crush their spirits.”
Although both the Fire Director Boyle and Fire Chief Thomas Lynch supported fire fighter contentions that houses are closed and that the department would operate more efficiently if the department was fully staff, neither said the situation posed an immediate danger to members of the department or to the general public.
“If they had said that, the council would have to act,” Coffey said, during a brief interview.
Such a declaration would have put the city council on notice and left the city open to potential liability if someone were injured because of lack of action.
When Coffey asked Boyle directly if the department had enough staff to meet its current needs, Boyle said yes, but said the moment was coming when he might not.