City tries to figure out how to add firefighters

The Kalispell Fire Department needs more manpower.

The federal government could provide money for more firefighters, but the Kalispell City Council is suspicious of some strings attached to that cash.

Next Monday, the council will vote on whether it really wants extra federal money to help pay for additional firefighters.

At a workshop session last Monday, council members did not give a clear picture of how the majority leans on this matter.

The fire department currently has 31 firefighter/paramedic positions. Two jobs are empty and the proposed 2008-09 budget has money set aside to fill those positions.

This translates to eight to 10 people on a 24-hour shift.

For the first time last Sunday, the fire department had to call in a rural district - Evergreen - to handle a purely ambulance call within the city.

That's because eight Kalispell firefighters were on Sunday's shift - enough to send the standard three-person engine and a two-person ambulance to a 10-month-old baby not breathing, and then another three-person engine to a fire, according to Acting Fire Chief Dan Diehl.

Then a man had a heart attack, and dispatchers shifted one engine from the baby to that case.

But the Evergreen ambulance with its equipment and transportation capabilities had to be called in.

With Kalispell growing and its fire department expanding very little, more rural ambulances might have to be called in when the city's force is stretched too thin, council members said.

However, Mayor Pam Kennedy worried about rural departments providing either basic or advanced life-support skills (depending on who responds to a call), while all Kalispell firefighters are certified with advanced life-support skills.

Meanwhile, the city earlier had applied for a U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant to add eight firefighters. But the grant required more city matching money than the local government believed would be available, and it withdrew the application.

In late May, the city staff found it could still apply for the same grant to pay for three new firefighters.

The strings are:

. Kalispell would pay an increasing percentage of matching funds annually until assuming all costs in the fifth year.

In the first year, the feds would pay $117,045 for wages for the three jobs, while Kalispell would pay $16,482 in wages and $53,411 in benefits for a total of $69,893 in matching money.

. Those three positions cannot be eliminated for five years.

Council member Bob Hafferman did not like having a federal grant governing how the city manages its employees. "Government grants tie your hands," he said.

Hafferman suggested the city hold off hiring firefighters above the 31-person mark until the city's property tax revenue increases from annexations and new construction.

Other council members were spooked by the combination of the fire department being stretched to its limit while no identifiable funds exist to pay the matching money required by the federal grant.

The city's one fund of unallocated money - its cash reserves - has $570,858 for fiscal 2008-09 and is expected to shrink to $54,636 by 2013, even if the grant's matching-cash obligations are not in the picture.

"Where's the money gonna come from? I don't know," Kennedy said.

The deadline for the grant application is Friday. The council cannot formally vote on whether to support the application until next Monday, when a special meeting is being scheduled.

Kennedy was "perplexed" that the city staff waited until Monday's non-voting workshop session to brief the council on the grant application.

City Manager Jim Patrick said the matter could have been lost in the recent shuffles of transferring people internally and the city government's move from the old city hall to the new one.

A possibly related reason for the lapse could be Fire Chief Randy Brodehl being on indefinite leave for the past few weeks. Daily Inter Lake questions about his leave and whether he is returning were referred to Patrick, who declined to comment.

Patrick told the council that City Attorney Charles Harball reviewed the grant application's requirements, and concluded that the council's approval is not needed to apply for the money, but would be needed to accept it.

A few council members interpreted the application's requirements differently last Monday - believing the council's approval is needed for the application.

Kennedy told the staff to submit the grant application by Friday's deadline, and the council would vote next Monday on whether to back it or withdraw it.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com