In a dramatic move at the end of Monday’s Austin City Council meeting, the burning question of Fire Department staffing was put out by a single command from Neil Fedson to City Administrator Pat McGarvey.

Tuesday, October 03, 2000

In a dramatic move at the end of Monday’s Austin City Council meeting, the burning question of Fire Department staffing was put out by a single command from Neil Fedson to City Administrator Pat McGarvey.

Fedson, chairman of the council’s fire committee, instructed McGarvey to draft a final version of the Austin Fire Department’s strategic plan that leaves the department staffing at status quo.

A smattering of applause from other council members greeted his announcement, which came after council business had been concluded and the mayor had moved on to committee reports. Fedson said the decision was one he and the two other members of the fire committee – council members Gloria Nordin and Mickey Jorgenson – had been agonizing over for weeks. In the end, he said, the decision was one he felt was the "best solution for the city in the long run."

Then the chairman outlined what the committee wanted, instructing McGarvey to include in the final draft of the strategic plan provisions that the full-time staff at the department remain at 10, including the fire chief. He added that funds for the 11th position currently under dispute would be placed in contingency funding pending the outcome of the legal challenge from Dana Miller, the firefighter dismissed this summer. The question of the Fire Department has been a hot one since the council revealed that the fire committee was considering two different versions of a strategic plan: one from a committee of firefighters that saw the department of the future "adequately staffed," meaning in an ideal world 15 full-time staff members plus the up-to-35 paid on-call part-time firefighters that make up the balance of the city’s combination department; the second, an adaptation of the first by McGarvey that contained one crucial difference – the city administrator recommended that the city go down to six full-time staff members through the process of attrition. That process looked like it was starting with the 2001 budget, when the council didn’t set aside funds to fill Miller’s position in the preliminary budget.

"I think it’s a fair compromise," McGarvey said after the meeting.

Fedson also asked for a third provision to be included in the strategic plan, this one that nine of the 10 full-time firefighters were to be scheduled on 24-hour shifts, and one person on each of the three shifts would be designated as fire inspector for that shift. The 10th firefighter would be the fire chief, who doesn’t work the 24-hour shifts.

That move puts Fire Inspector Ron Felten, who currently works a Monday through Friday, 40-hour workweek, on a regular firefighter’s schedule of 24 hours on, two days off. By putting Felten on a shift basis, it solved the department’s problem of being unable – since Miller’s dismissal – to keep all shifts staffed with a minimum of two full-time firefighters.

"For now the money for the 11th position will be kept in the contingency fund pending the outcome of litigation," Fedson said. "As far as staffing that position if Miller’s appeal fails, we’ll have to cross that bridge when it comes to that." Fedson added, however, that he would favor filling that position should Miller’s appeal fail.

No vote was taken at Monday’s meeting. The adoption of the plan will be voted on by the entire council at its Oct. 16 meeting after the city administrator has included the provisions specified by the fire committee.

Firefighters at the meeting had mixed reactions to the news of a compromise.

Paul Behn, secretary of Austin Fire Fighters Association Local 598, the full-time firefighters’ union, said the announcement did ease concerns that the department would be cut.

However, he added, there are still issues with the department to be addressed by the council.