Here’s a San Diego city firefighter hiring reform we need. Four, actually.
1. Do what EVERY OTHER CITY IN THE COUNTY DOES — hire already qualified firefighters who graduate from accredited firefighter academies — primarily our community college programs. Let the students pay for their firefighter education. No need to start from scratch with a new recruit — putting him (occasionally her) though the city’s own firefighter academy totally at city taxpayer expense. If the city wants to do additional training on top of that, fine — use OJT or hold a short academy for new hires. That’s what other cities do.
2. Not only do we pay for our SDFD new hires’ education, we actually pay them a SALARY to go to our free school. I think it’s currently about $2,500 a month — with zero commitment to the city upon graduation. This subsidy is TOTALLY unnecessary. Moreover, by having the students as employees, we taxpayers are subject to a lifelong disability risk while in the city academy — a risk that the students normally are responsible for while in school.
3. As I mentioned, our SDFD academy graduates — educated at city expense — are then free to go to ANY city for a job. There is zero commitment by these subsidized students.
Assuming we continue this city academy madness, have the students sign for a loan for the city cost of their education. Then forgive the loan on a sliding scale — at least 10 years. The longer they work for the city of San Diego, the less they have to pay back.
4. Expand recruiting of EXPERIENCED firefighters by recruiting firefighters in other states. Remember, our AVERAGE California firefighter pay is 60% higher than the pay for working full-time paid firefighters in the other 49 states:
http://tinyurl.com/CA-ff-and-cop-pay
Ideally the city should run such ads in January-February — especially in snow belt states! Our imaginary “shortage” of firefighters would go away overnight.
BTW, the San Diego shortage is exacerbated by the long hiring and training period for San Diego firefighters. Hire trained “off the shelf” firefighters, and there’s almost zero lag time to replace departing firefighters. The shortage (if any) is due to city ineptitude, NOT to a shortage of eager, qualified, trained firefighters who wish to work for the SDFD.
Comments 3
Richard, Richard, Richard, your proposal makes TOO much sense. No self-respecting public agency will ever do the common sense thing that is cost effective.
The SDFD wants to do things THEIR way. If it costs the taxpayers more, they don’t care. That’s what you and I are here for, to pay through the nose.
I know several firefighters. They are good people who work hard. But like you, I am disgusted by their gaming of the system. When the Mayor was giving them a raise recently, why didn’t he take the opportunity to trade these common sense changes for the raise?
Do fire fighters still get overtime for fighting fires? That one always blew my mind. Hazardous duty pay I can see like the military gets overseas but no one would give the military overtime for fighting wars.
Author
Elliot Schroeder — ANSWER: Yes and no. They don’t get paid overtime for fighting fires — they get paid overtime for being “on the clock.”
If I take your ff shift in addition to my regular shifts, I get paid overtime — regardless of what does or does not happen on the shift. They get the overtime for working (mostly medical calls), practicing, exercising, blogging, watching TV, hanging out at Starbucks (a daily vigil for my local firefighters), eating their meals and sleeping. And yes — for firefighting — which constitutes about 3% of the average firefighter shift these days.