EASTHAMPTON — Fire Chief David Mottor is seeking funds to restore the long-vacant position of deputy fire chief.
Mottor is requesting $37,050 to fund 26 weeks of base pay for the position, to start Jan. 1, 2018. His request, a supplemental appropriation, will be reviewed by the City Council Finance Subcommittee.
The position has been vacant since 2009, when Mottor was promoted from deputy fire chief to chief. It has not been filled due to budget restraints.
According to Mottor, in the past, the deputy chief oversaw the house training program, coordinated vehicle and equipment repairs, served as assistant emergency management director, applied for and managed grants, and assisted with fire prevention and public education.
“While the elimination of the deputy chief’s position did save money, the operations of the department suffered immediately,” Mottor wrote to Mayor Karen Cadieux in his request to fund the job.
Describing the department’s experiences in years past, Mottor said that all the duties of the deputy were first put on the fire chief, but programs faltered. When the duties were shared with others, the department incurred overtime costs.
Mottor’s suggested plan for the deputy fire chief includes these responsibilities:
Ambulance coordinator; oversee the operation of ambulance service
Assist in fire prevention; restart public education
Serve as the department training officer
Serve as the emergency management director, assisted by the fire chief.
Mottor said the in-house training program was significantly affected when the department was without a deputy chief. Training was delivered by each of the four shift captains, but that caused a rise in overtime hours, and the training program was eventually cut.
The lack of training not only affects the department, but also the residents the department serves, the chief said in his request.
The International Organization of Standardization rates fire departments in several areas, and a department’s score affects homeowners’ insurance rates, according to Mottor. Currently the department is rated at a class 4 on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 being best. Mottor told the Gazette that for the next inspection he believes it could be raised to a class 3.
“I believe if we had a training officer, we would have scored higher and and possibly lowered homeowners insurance rates in Easthampton,” Mottor said.
With no deputy fire chief, all public education programs were discontinued.
“At one point there was a firefighter assigned to each elementary school, public and parochial, providing fire safety to students in grades pre-K — 4,” Mottor wrote. “We also did fire safety for the elderly housing projects in town as well as weekly blood pressure screening clinics.”
Mottor said one of the key components of the deputy chief position is fire-prevention building inspections. There are more than 200 multifamily dwellings in Easthampton, and Mottor said he expects all of the inspections to take two years to complete.
Cadieux told the Gazette that she supports the chief’s request and would like to have a deputy chief in place by January.
Caitlin Ashworth can be reached at cashworth@gazettenet.com.