The city is seeking federal assistance to hire nine new firefighters in the next fiscal year.
At the March 9 meeting, the Taylor City Council unanimously approved Fire Chief Daniel Baum’s recommendation to apply for a Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant by March 17 to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for full salary and benefits for the nine positions over three years.
“Well, I appreciate you reaching for the moon and asking for nine,” said At-large Councilman Dwayne Ariola. “My personal opinion is nine is the right answer, so that you do effect the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) requirements for the grant.”
If approved, the grant would provide approximately $2.2 million for the nine new positions, which would allow three extra people to be on staff each day over three shifts, and would get the department closer to the NFPA’s recommendations of 17 firefighters on duty each day, up from the six to seven positions the department currently has.
“This would bring us up to 10 firefighters per day, but it would often meet NFPA compliance with mutual/ automatic aid,” according to Baum’s presentation.
Baum said the city had the option to ask for fewer or more, but the nine number was better for the goal. Last month, the consulting group Citygate recommended Taylor Fire Department double its staffing capacity and add a third fire station in the southwest region of the city as part of a Fire Services Master Plan, which is not an immediately obtainable prospect, Baum said.
“ To get to this level, I recommend we get to this recommended staffing level over an eight-year period,” Baum said. “Obviously, it’s nothing that we are going to be able to accomplish overnight.”
While obtaining this grant funding would help, there are still some challenges, including the city having to pay for more than $100,000 for onetime expenses, such as uniforms, personal protective equipment, initial medical exams, fire station furnishings, as well as unscheduled overtime, in addition to the salaries and benefits once the grant ends, Baum said.
“The annual cost to maintain the positions at the conclusion of the grant, is about $840,000 beginning in fiscal year 2027,” Baum said.
Another major hurdle and expense would be the likely need to train some of the new applicants, as the city would be obligated to fill the nine positions within 180 days of accepting the grant, Baum said.
“It’d be difficult to find nine qualified candidates at once,” Baum said. “Typically, since I have been here for four years, most of our hiring processes, we get about 10 applicants, and maybe half of them are qualified, so if we did hire a number of firefighters at once, we would have to use a model similar to the police department, where we would hire them as a civilian and send them to a fire academy.”
Ariola said despite the costs, this move made sense to him.
“We have three years to worry about the budget,” Ariola said. “I’m sure Jeff (Wood, Chief Financial Officer) is going to go over those with a fine-tooth comb over the next three years to make sure we can afford it. It’s finding it. But I would probably agree that we are going to have to send them to training because they just don’t exist.”
Still, several councilmen expressed doubts, including wondering how much the training would cost the city, which Baum said was probably about $5,000 per person, and whether or not it was such a good idea.
“So, if we train these firefighters, what keeps them here?” Drummond said. “What keeps them from taking that training and going to Austin or somewhere else that pays better?”
To this, Baum gave a lighthearted response.
“Because its Taylor, and it’s the greatest fire department in the world,” he replied, prompting laughter in the council chambers.
On a serious note, however, the chief told leaders, the city has been making great strides in retention, and firefighters are bullish on Taylor’s future.
“Council has invested a lot and made strides in salary and benefits from where we were four years ago, and you know the fire department used to be a revolving door here,” Baum said. “We used to turn over three or four firefighters a year, and that hasn’t been the case … so you all should be proud of making things better for keeping people here. I think it’s a good environment, and people are excited about the growth that is here, so I think we have to hire the right people, but I think they would be in it for the long haul.”
