The Greater Napanee Professional Fire Fighters Association is urging the Mayor and Council to approve the Fire Chief’s recommendation to hire four full-time firefighters in the 2024 budget.
The Town of Greater Napanee has shared this in response:
The Town of Greater Napanee acknowledges the Greater Napanee Fire Department’s budgetary requests for four additional full-time staffing positions.
The Greater Napanee Fire Department is comprised of a Fire Chief, Deputy Fire Chief, Administrative Coordinator/CEMC, Fire Prevention Officer, Training Officer, six Full-time Firefighters represented by the Greater Napanee Professional Firefighters Local 2822 and 46 non-union Greater Napanee Paid On-call Firefighters Association members. Full-time Firefighters currently work in platoons of three and provide coverage seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Paid-on Call Firefighters are on call between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Staff and Council are currently engaged in budget deliberations and contract negotiations with unionized employees. Staff and Council are also anticipating contract negotiations with non-unionized employees of the Greater Napanee Fire Department. Recently, the impact of adding four full-time Firefighters has been presented as a minimal cost per household per day. However, the measure used by Council to consider budget impacts is by percentage of taxes. Over a five-year period, full-time Firefighters move from Probationary Firefighter with annual increases to take staff to First Class Firefighter. To add four additional full-time Firefighters, the full-time costs equate to an estimated 3.22% tax increase in year one and an estimated 4.72% tax increase in year five. In real dollars that is an additional estimated tax levy of $454,715 in year one to $665,371 in year five.
In addition to ongoing negotiations, a Community Risk Assessment and Fire Master Plan are being completed. Unfortunately, these guiding documents are underway but not yet completed and have not been presented to Council. These detailed documents are necessary to determine how the Fire Department will operate in the future and aid Council in making informed and defendable decisions with respect to the Fire Department.
The Town of Greater Napanee has a Medical Tiered Response Agreement with our upper tier government, the County of Lennox and Addington. This agreement has a direct influence on the operations of our Fire Department and if adjusted may provide efficiencies to our fire services providing a more effective level of service to our community.
Each of these factors will have an ongoing impact on the Greater Napanee Fire Department and staff levels. Given the deliberations, completion of the plans, and contract negotiations, Council will have the opportunity to make informed and defendable decisions with respect to the Greater Napanee Fire Department.
