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December 19, 2010 in City
Deputy fire chief cut stirs furor
City Council move unexpected, criticized as micromanaging
The Spokane City Council’s decision last week to cut a deputy fire chief position has angered administrators and Mayor Mary Verner.
“It was not discussed with me. It was not discussed with the chief. It was completely unexpected,” Verner said. “What has been created here is an impossibility for getting the job done.”
Verner said earlier this week that if the council combines that decision with other “problematic budget outcomes,” she’ll veto the budget.
“I’m going to look very carefully at what happens next Monday,” she said in an interview. Vetoing a budget is “a lot of work for a lot of people, and I won’t do it lightly, but if I have to, I will.”
The council last week voted 5-2 to eliminate a deputy fire chief position. The full 2011 budget is expected to be finalized by the council on Monday.
Spokane’s deputy fire chiefs earn from $121,000 to $148,000 a year, plus benefits, depending on experience.
Fire leaders say the eliminated position, which would oversee emergency medical services, is essential to the department’s operations. The position oversees most aspects of medical response, including the city’s ambulance contract with American Medical Response. The job also tracks response times, ensures the department meets all EMS regulations and makes sure medics are properly supplied and trained, said Fire Chief Bobby Williams.
Last year, 84 percent of the Spokane Fire Department’s calls were related to EMS.
“This is not something that is taken lightly by us,” Williams said. EMS is “probably the highest risk exposure for liability that the city has.”
Most council members say the position, which has been vacant since March, is drastically overpaid. They note that fire officials weren’t planning to fill the job until late next year to save money in the 2011 budget. Councilman Richard Rush said removing the job from the budget simply forces Williams to better justify the position and pay scale.
Councilman Jon Snyder said delays in hiring for the job are proof that it costs taxpayers too much.
“If we want accountability we need to cut this position down to size so it’s manageable, we can hire for it, and it’s not an economic encumbrance for us moving forward,” he said.
Council President Joe Shogan and Councilman Steve Corker, who voted against removing the position, said cutting the deputy chief job is akin to micromanaging City Hall.
“We are now going to assume the responsibility of professionally evaluating 2,000 positions in the city of Spokane,” Corker said. “What we’re doing by this discussion is setting a precedent that allows us to penetrate any one of the divisions or departments.”
But Snyder said the council is simply performing its duty.
“We’re not micromanaging when we use our position as overseers, as the citizens’ eyes and ears in City Hall to point out something we don’t feel is right,” he said.
In Spokane, firefighters are the first responders to medical emergencies. AMR transports patients to hospitals.
Williams said nearly all large fire departments that deal with medical response have a position to oversee EMS. The Spokane Valley Fire Department, for instance, has a battalion chief position overseeing EMS.
Spokane Valley Chief Mike Thompson said the salary Spokane pays its EMS chief isn’t out of line with what other departments pay.
“It’s a lot to take care of, and it’s a full-time job,” he said. “It’s such a significant part of the operations of what we do.”
He added that it would be problematic for someone without firefighting or paramedic experience to manage EMS – as some Spokane City Council members suggest.
“I think that might be difficult for the layperson,” Thompson said.
Rich Kness handled EMS oversight until March, when he retired. The city currently is contracting with Kness to complete some EMS work. As of November, the city had paid Kness about $13,000 under the contract – nearly all of it to help complete a software upgrade related to emergency dispatch, Williams said. Most of his other duties were absorbed by Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer and the two other deputy chiefs, though one of those chiefs recently resigned to take a new job out of state, Williams said. The council has left money in the budget to pay for the other vacant deputy chief position.
Councilman Bob Apple said the city needs to completely change its oversight of EMS. He noted that even with a chief assigned to watch over the city ambulance contract, AMR still overbilled citizens by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“We need to rethink,” Apple said. “We have a problem, and continuing as we have been isn’t going to solve it.”
As a result of a class-action lawsuit, AMR agreed this year to pay just under $1 million plus interest to more than 12,000 ambulance users who were overbilled by AMR over a six-year period.
Others, however, say the AMR overbilling incident is proof that a deputy chief overseeing EMS is necessary.
“I went through this AMR thing for four years and what I got out of it was a clear-cut demand from the citizens that there be a watchdog on this deal,” Shogan said.
This fall, the city’s acting human resources director, Erin Jacobson, asked the city Ethics Committee to determine if the Kness contract violated the city’s ethics policy regarding employment.
The committee ruled in October that it is acceptable for the city to hire a recently employed employee by contract. The ethics policy is aimed at preventing city workers from quitting and working for private companies that work on city business within one year of city employment, it said.
Kness “was hired by the city, is representing the city and has the same interest as the city,” said the commission’s written decision.
MAC faces angry crowd 
Dazzeetrader11 on December 19 at 2:36 a.m.
What an actress. She knew it. made the agreement and doesn’t seem to remember it. She has to blame someone else….let’s see who’s next in line. Has this mayor ever admitted to anything wrong in Spokane?…well yes..but not on her 3 year watch. Anything and everything bad was Bush’s fault or somebody else. Never hers.
Who did the negotiating?? Who sign it? I mean seriously…her hand is on everything. She’s thinks people are just too stupid to notice. She’s invisible. Nobody can know…shhhh…
liarsinnews on December 19 at 7:46 a.m.
Mayor Verner is not qualified to Spokane`s CEO. The marriage with the ambulance service and the SPF Chief Bobby Williams shows a investigation is needed regarding his accountability. Lots of smoke. Might be a fire.
hammer1969 on December 19 at 9:18 a.m.
“Williams said nearly all large fire departments that deal with medical response…”
That’s the part that should be eliminated…Our fire dept only goes to like a couple dozen fires a year. What a waste. They send three trucks to every call and than count it as three calls for service. What a racket!
opiemuyo on December 19 at 10:15 a.m.
Me thinks it is a correct step. Why is the city in the EMS business? Cannot a private company provide this service? EMR perhaps take it all over?
misjustice on December 19 at 10:29 a.m.
From the article: “… the position, which has been vacant since March…”
I never noticed that the position has been vacant. Did you?
Seriously, I don’t know what all the brouhaha is about. The position was vacant for 8 months, so filling it must not have been high on the priority list. Why? Could it be because the position is not necessary?
hawken on December 19 at 12:04 p.m.
misjudgment…. it’s the unions…. the unions…. that’s the “brouhaha.”
You know, those who run our state and federal government…. the Democrat unions?
Dazzeetrader11 on December 19 at 12:11 p.m.
Absolutely Hawken. J…why would Verner raise a fuss over a “vacant” position? Make sense to you?
misjustice on December 19 at 1:20 p.m.
Well, if the Unions are as powerful as some would claim, why would they allow such a plum job to go unfilled for 8 months?????
Could it be that they are just not as powerful as some would like us to believe?
; )
Dazzeetrader11 on December 19 at 3:37 p.m.
More logical: they didn’t have a suitable candidate. Bet they’ll find one now!! J…they don’t care about anything but their pockets. Their job is just a necessary evil. They do not care about a shortfall, limitation of service or protection. That’s their job but if they’re aren’t funded like their union reps tell them they should be, they don’t care.
Friday noon, I spent some time reviewing the situation with one of your St legislators in Olympia. Don’t know the person well but he’s a conservative. I wondered aloud what is the REAL problem. As it turns out, the real problem isn’t revenue or a shortfall……..it depends on the cause of the extreme debt leading to a shortfall.
The current opinion is that what Gregoire/Verner…both in the same boat.one more extreme proportionately……. have to cut the education budget and healthcare because the union has hundreds of thousands membership. They do have a contract which calls for penion funding, big salaries, benefits like nonbody else gets, etc. Nobody is standing up for the public. Unholy alliances sometimes end this way.
But, the opinion is that theyunions believe they do come first. The state cannot run without them..and they think they have enough clout to cause any candidate damage. Thus, to stand up, call for renegotiation or even threaten the honeypot in any way is “enemy action”.
Someone who isn’t there to have a job or protect a job will be needed. The real cause of the “shortfall” though are the union bills. Feet to the fire…they won’t relent because they think they’re entitled. Gregoire never mentions unions because it would be lethal to her career. She’s made that calculation….hoping nobody will notice if she doesn’t mention it.
Same with Murray. Same with Verner. Verner’s case is different…she just lies. She actually does have the money…she claims shortfall because it isn’t enough to cover everything. She just won’t tap the correct funds. Bad faith.It’s odd…look at Verner big 5 accomplishments…the biggest ( in her phrasing) is that she’s fighting the unions on behalf of the people. Garbage..Joan of Arc she’s not. She’s trying to fool the public and the unions simultaneously. People like Verner can fool their way into being re-elected.unless someone asks the basic question:
What have you done in over 3 years as Mayor”?…it’ll be a short answer.
somesense on December 20 at 7:19 p.m.
First I am a union member for the Spokane Firefighters. There is so much wrong information, it amazes me. Some of you act like you are experts. You should check your facts. I know we have been asking and pushing to not fill that Deputy position. Yes, the union does not want it filled. Most of us think the money would be well spent hiring 2 or 3 firefighters to give the citizens better service, or saved and not spent on anything. I personally support the councils decision.
We go on hundreds of fires a year, along with many other incidents. Stopping EMS would not allow us to have any less firefighters, if you want a safe community. That is why firefighters do EMS all across the country. It allows cost savings, because we feel dual roles. Moving EMS would just cost the city more and cause less efficiency. If you want more efficiency, you would have the fire dept do transport like most of the state. Right now we do almost all of the work and a private company gets all of the revenue. We subsidize a for profit company with tax dollars.
We send 1 truck to most EMS calls, sometimes 2, and almost never 3. We sent multiple trucks to fire and other incidents. In an emergency seconds count. We send enough resources to handle things. A saying is it is always easier to send extra resources home, than not have enough. We are here to protect and save your life and property….do you really want a service that only sometimes succeeds?
We do care about service. Your safety means our safety. That is our number one. We do not have huge salaries and pensions. I would give the facts to anybody. I do not make more than nurses, electricians, plumbers, tattoo artists, UPS drivers, many sales people, and mid level manager, and so on.
To attack a union is the easy way out. It is the evil, but most of the reasons given are hugely false. I would appreciate people getting at least some facts right, before I am attacked. I know you that post are the minority and are the same ones that post about the unions on an story about government. You portray yourselves as such experts……hmmmmm
Kommonsense on December 21 at 9:52 a.m.
FIrst off how many EMS calls does the Fire Dept respond to? Looking at the city web site it seems that it’s over 20,000 a year plus a couple thousand fires. I do believe it would be very remiss for our FD not to respond to all of these.
The other troubling fact is the council has a department head they pay very well to mange this department, seems like there is no problem with him (Fire Chief) why does the council see the need to get involved? It’s his job and he’s the expert we pay for. Let him do it. If he is doing something very wrong then deal with him. Stay out of day to day operations and don’t cut public safety for us.
Another question how is the union involved with this? The article is about the council’s actions, the position appears to be a non-union management position. People you need to check your facts and look objectively at them.
johnclarke on January 04 at 1:56 p.m.
somesense, I appreciate your point of view.
Here is my suggestion - (and I fully agree with your statement) either get into the EMS transport business or get out of EMS. I don’t see any reason to have two groups essentially perfoming the same task. The study posted on your website clearly states that the contractor can respond just as quickly, and has more than sufficient levels of training as paramedics. What is the rationale for sending an entire fire truck with full staffing to an EMS call and the transport ?
So, exactly what facts am I missing? Perhaps you tell me what justifies the tax dollars to fight like 70 structure fires a year? If we stopped funding firefighter EMS, ended the levys and the equipment costs, we would probably have enough money to plow the streets. Then there would be less accidents. Then there would be less EMS calls. How is that for logic?
And sorry, I can’t suscribe to your view of the meager compensation you receive. You work 24 hours on, and 72 off. You get vacation, overtime, medical, dental, 401k and pension. Do you have a 2nd job? I know a few firefighters that make a pretty nice living at the “other” job. How does your salary line up with the median income in Spokane? What did you pull down last year?