Chicago FD Entrance Exam
From WBBM780.com:
CHICAGO (WBBM Newsradio 780) -- The Chicago Fire Department gives an entrance exam Thursday and Friday for new firefighter hopefuls. 25,000 people have signed up to take the exam, being given at McCormick Place.This is Chicago's first firefighters entrance exam in more than a decade
Holy crow! Isn't that an incredible number of people to test? I wonder how many will pass the test?
Department Struggles to Retain Firefighters
A department in Maryland is making some interesting choices (from The Capital via Firehouse.com).
The county Fire Department is losing firefighters almost as fast as it can hire them, leading officials to lower standards for new recruits.
The county Personnel Office has started giving passing grades to new hires who correctly answer 60 percent of questions on a written test - the equivalent of a low D in a county grade school. The previous standard was 70 percent.
Over objections from the union that represents the county's firefighters, the department also has cut an intensive physical conditioning course from 12 weeks to a couple of hours.
While I'm not sure of the wisdom of these choices, it seems that the real problem for this department is firefighter retention. They need to address the reasons why they are losing so many firefighters so that they don't have to bring on so many new recruits.
Read the whole thing to get all of the details.
Firefighters Lose Jobs Due to Internet Incident
Six Milwaukee firefighters were fired (from Firehouse.com).
Six Milwaukee firefighters were fired Friday for their alleged roles in an incident in which a firefighter, while on duty, performed a lewd act in front of a computer camera while colleagues at a different firehouse watched.
Read the whole story for the details on the incident.
These firefighters have the opportunity to appeal their firing, however, I don't think they'll get their jobs back. People have lost their jobs over a lot less.
This just shows that you better keep it clean while on the internet at the fire hall, even if you are using your personal computer - which was the case with one of the computers in the Milwaukee incident.
Pittsburgh FD May Have 250 Openings
The Pittsburgh Fire Department is facing a huge task next year (from Firehouse.com).
Chief Michael H. Huss is emphasizing training as his department seeks to fill up to 250 jobs next year. That's about a third of the department's work force, and the most openings anyone in the Fire Bureau can remember. Almost half of the openings could come from retirements this month. With so many seasoned firefighters leaving at once, the bureau will lean heavily on recruits.To ensure they're up to the task, Huss, who took over the bureau in March, doubled recruit training time from nine weeks to 18, required recruits to undergo lie-detector background checks and added new vehicle rescue and Emergency Medical Technician courses.
...
"By the end of 2006, better than one-third of my department will be new firefighters," he said. "That has never happened in the history of my profession."
I hope all goes well for the fire department. Getting so many new recruits trained up within such a short period of time is going to be a challenge.
We have a small volunteer department in my hometown, but it would be tricky to have 1/3 of the department be new firefighters. The loss of experience from the firefighters leaving the department would really set us back.
Parishes Face Firefighter Layoffs
Yet another effect from Hurricane Katrina (from USA Today):
BATON ROUGE — Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Monday that many of the Louisiana's parishes devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are "on the verge of financial collapse" and may need to lay off scores of police officers and firefighters.Blanco appealed to the Bush administration and to Congress to amend or suspend a U.S. law that prohibits the use of federal money to cover basic expenses of local governments, including the payrolls of public safety and health departments.
This is really a tough situation. I feel bad for the firefighters (and other city employees) that may lose their jobs. However, I'm not sure that it is the federal government's place to pay salaries of city/county/parish employees - even in a situation like this.
It's a difficult thing to contemplate, but these local governments may be forced to move from a paid fire department to a volunteer fire department. At least until their town is rebuilt and they have the tax revenue available to go back to a paid department.
Happy Ending for SC Firefighter
Remember the firefighter from South Carolina that was fired because he became the son-in-law of another firefighter which violated a city policy? Well, it looks like things a turning out fine according to this story from tuscaloosanews.com.
The Rock Hill firefighter who lost his job after marrying the daughter of a fire captain at another station in the city has found work, as a firefighter in his hometown of Findlay, Ohio.Matt Cooper, 25, was fired in July after a judge refused to let him keep his job while he challenged Rock Hill's anti-nepotism policy. The policy bans relatives, including in-laws, from working in the same department.
Findlay, Ohio, a city of about 40,000 people about two hours of Lake Erie, doesn't have such a rule. Cooper's father, Robin, works as a captain in the Findlay Fire Department.
Hiring Policy Under Scrutiny
This is an interesting story via the New York Times about the FDNY's use of "stipulation agreements" to hire firefighters with minor drug and alcohol convictions:
The New York Fire Department acknowledged yesterday that it has been making increasing use of hiring agreements that allow firefighters with minor drug and alcohol convictions to join the ranks as long as they agree to random substance abuse tests.The use of so-called stipulation agreements came into the spotlight on Wednesday when the father of a firefighter who had been hired conditionally was arrested and charged with offering thousands of dollars in bribes to employees of a Brooklyn medical laboratory to help dispose of his son's urine samples that had tested positive for cocaine, the authorities said.
Fire officials called the stipulation agreements smart policy, and said they were intended to forgive youthful mistakes, including minor drug or alcohol arrests, and to more closely monitor firefighters with a history of such problems. Stipulation agreements allow the department to fire those who fail substance abuse tests.
As long as well-qualified people are hired and then monitored closely from the start of their employment, I don’t see a problem with this policy.
SC Firefighter Loses Job
Well, Matt Cooper, the South Carolina firefighter that became the son-in-law of fire captain by marrying his daughter has officially been fired.
Here is the report from the Charlotte Observer (via Firehouse.com):
Cooper was given a 30-day grace period after his wedding. As that time came to a close, he filed a lawsuit asking for a restraining order that would allow him to keep his job as litigation continued. A federal judge granted a 10-day extension July 15, and the issue was sent to state court.Circuit Court Judge John Hayes III dissolved the temporary restraining order Tuesday and refused to stop the city from firing Cooper. In a written opinion, Hayes said the likelihood of successfully overturning the city policy was "minimal."
"The City's anti-nepotism policy is clear, does not appear to violate any of Cooper's asserted rights and the City has an absolute right to terminate any employee at will for any reason or no reason at all," Hayes wrote.
I don’t know all of the details, but I think Matt Cooper is out of luck. My guess is that further legal action won’t get him anywhere.
