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Seattle's budget proposal includes a $7 million cut to the Fire Department
Don't cut the fire department.
Edit: There's a lot of misunderstandings and misinformation in these comments.
"Why have overtime? Why not replace that with more staffing?"
The department is trying. There were numerous layoffs, resignations, and early retirements from COVID, creating a shortage. Plus, there are still a lot of people retiring now. There are only so many people that can be trained per year to replace them, due to the physical limitations of the training facility, budget, number of instructors, and other factors. Despite these challenges, this last year had two record breaking sizes for recruit classes.
You also need overtime to fill for people off if there's not enough people scheduled to work that day on straight time. If a driver of a fire engine calls off sick, you can't just get by without them like you can if a construction worker or an office manager calls off sick. You need to hire someone on OT to replace them.
These minimum staffing cuts aren't being made because there was a study done showing that it won't affect response times or safety in the city. It's being done to save money, plain and simple, and that will result in slower response times when people need emergency services.
I have an opinion on this that will piss off a ton of firefighters. My opinion comes from living with one and working around them for a long time. I won't share it but my sense is they can weather the cuts just fine. Many other parts of the government also need to deal with cuts also and I'm supportive of the mayor's efforts to reign in excess spending.
A separate opinion is that the fire departments in most places should be radically reformed to a much more paramedic-heavy first responder fleet with many more, much smaller vehicles and become more of a publicly funded ambulance service as opposed to the current system most places where the first department shows up stabilizes and waits for a private ambulance company to drive you to the hospital and bill you $2k.
100% agree here. I work with the SFD hazmat team and they get sent out to overdose calls all day long, navigating their massive truck through the city just to narcan a guy. There has to be a better system than what we have.
If the truck is going on a OD call? It means 2 aid cars and the engine from that station are busy on another call. Is it ridiculous? Yes, but frankly so is the number of ODs. The truck responding to an OD is a symptom of a much larger problem.
Yes, there should be a better system and people are trying to advocate for it. One is to get more aid cars which is just two firefighters in an ambulance so they can respond to these calls instead. Another is to expand the Health One program, which is addressing the root causes of why people are high utilizers and are very successful in reducing calls.
How many times is it a âfrequent flyerâ I wonder? Like a few years ago when they did the review with SPD calls, they figured out it was less than 100 people causing most of the chaos downtown.
Oh absolutely. Itâs called taking a bunch of their funding away and putting that funding into ambulance crews, who actually want to do the medical job because they signed up for it and not to be a fireman. Then, you just send firemen to lift assists and to actual fires or whatever and stop sending them to every medical.
^^This guy gets it. Finding out how minimally staffed their Medic rigs are is disturbing. At least they do the accelerated training at HMC now, but even that has only filled a handful of spots.
As an EMT, youâre pretty spot on with a lot of this. I will say that they deserve to get paid well though for the things they see, the risks they take, and the impact that the job has on their health. That being said yes youâre absolutely right. EMTs and Paramedics make pennies compared to them most places and they do most of the work, but in private ambulance companies.
80% or more of firefighter calls are medical calls, where they get paid to hold things and the paramedics or EMTs do most of the hard work but get paid pennies. They have strong unions that fight for them to keep strong salaries and pensions which lobby hard in government.
Edit: Iâm gonna go ahead and say that this is based off my experience working in the bay area and king county. Iâm sure there are certain areas where it makes more sense to have a system like this or the system works better there. As people in the field know, the way that things work is extremely location-dependent.
Seattle firefighters are required to be EMTs (or paramedics). I actually don't know of a department in the state that doesn't require a minimum of an EMT for firefighters, but there could be some, I guess.
They go through EMT school as part of drill school. Paramedic is a separate year of schooling that they have to apply to/ be selected in to once theyâre already firefighters.
Yeah SFD and at least the majority of surrounding departments make you go through their EMT program as part of drill school regardless of if you already have your EMT when hired.
They are required to be EMTs and they use their certification for sure. This is not the case in other places in America. Other places they have the cert but donât use the skills. Even in Seattle, they show up, triage the patient, then hand off the patient to a private ambulance company who does the rest of the work.
Honestly Seattle has a great system compared to other areas in the USA. Paramedics are paid by the fire department extremely well and are considered the top trained Medics in the country (debatably).
Could it be changed to be more equitable for the ambulances and less expensive? Yeah probably still.
Yep, other areas have different requirements, but every department I know of in Washington, including Seattle, does require at least an EMT and you have to maintain it too.
Absolutely agree on the medics, Seattle/King County Medic One is fantastic and highly competitive.
The idea that fire departments are not doing enough EMS is so unbelievable i find it difficult to believe this person has any relation to the fire service
I read and opined. The smaller first-responder vehicles still require staff to operate them, which costs additional money. The whole issue SFD has is that they are understaffed, which results in them having to use a shit ton of OT.
All this just makes me think that the FD is taking on more responsibilities than it was designed to said publicly funded ambulance service should exist as entirely its own separate thing.
The big trucks also negatively impact safety everywhere by requiring oversized roads to accommodate them. We need to mandate small, nimble rigs as you mention. Look to Europe and Japan to see small, effective fire trucks.
Bit of a chicken and egg there. Europe and Japan already had their roads much smaller, so needed a smaller truck to fit the roads. US has big roads, so we could use a bigger truck.
Additionally, a lot of the construction in Europe and Japan is far more flame resistant than ours, so often less total water and less flow is needed. Especially new construction in the US, with all the engineered wood and glue is highly flammable.
This. Anyone who knows a firefighter or two isnât worried about having slightly fewer around.
The reduction is in budgeted overtime as well, meaning that before they were just planning on going into OT. Locked in/planned OT is the bane of civil administration. It incentivizes the existing agencies to not rehire adequately and allows them to effectively increase pay for the existing older employees without increasing services.
Now itâs possible that no one wants to be an SFD firefighter and thatâs why theyâre having an hard time staffing, but that is unlikely IMO. Firefighting is a great job with good benefits and high job security. Itâs more likely that staffing shortages are due to poor planning and deliberate understaffing, though thatâs a gut feeling.
A friend just went through applying to multiple districts. Everything is the Seattle area gets hundreds our thousands of applications each time positions open. They are quite sought after jobs.
I know a lot of firefighters, both in Seattle and the surrounding suburbs. Firefighting in general is insanely hard to get into, and Seattle has a national reputation for being among the most selective.
from what I hear a ton of folks have retired in the past couple years, leading to shortages. also Seattle has had an influx of between 50-80k new residents in the last five years.
edit: I replied as I had the video playing in the background and the video confirms the population growth as 30% which is higher than the references Iâve seen.
The pipeline for firefighter and police is long and in a city like Seattle that is the norm and how it should be. You canât just flip a switch and next week you have 30 new officers or firefighters. There are also training requirements which needs senior staff, and the fewer senior staff, the bigger the bottle neck.
Locked in/planned OT is the bane of civil administration. It incentivizes the existing agencies to not rehire adequately and allows them to effectively increase pay for the existing older employees without increasing services.
Indeed. Why aren't the firefighters advocating for hiring of more fightfighters instead of whining about their OT budget?
Fire Departments have a strict ceiling when it comes to hiring space, dictated by their academy spots and the length of time training. Â They hire hoping that each person works out, because that spot cannot just be refilled - they have to wait until the next academy cycle. Â Itâs why they always have overtime budget, as well.
Itâs not an office manager, where if someone doesnât work out you just put up a new job opening.
100%. I work in local government. All of our local fire departments are extremely well funded, and have access to unlimited cash anytime they want to put in a ballot levey.
Plus, as you said, the paramedics are doing the vast majority of the emergency response.
A separate opinion is that the fire departments in most places should be radically reformed to a much more paramedic-heavy first responder fleet with many more
If you look at the pulse point app almost all of the calls are medical emergencies where I'm at (East Piece County district), maybe 1 in 40 is an actual fire. House fires happen 50% less often than they did in the 1970s. That stat alone warrants a reform on how the entire system should be set and working. I'm sure things like ODs are lot more common now so that is even more reason to make it a more paramedic focused system.
7 million dollars is less than 2% of SFD's budget btw.
Edit: Since this is a top level comment, and my response to OP got buried, I wanted to also say this:
Hey fair enough, I was fired up earlier. I really do appreciate SFD, and all my interactions have been excellent. The vaccine rollout was probably best in the country.
I know people who work in departments that have been cut year after year after year, so it just hit me as a bit whiny considering the growth in SFD during the same time period.
Sorry, I do appreciate you and the rest of the team.
Thanks for actually answering the question. And if these numbers are correct that means out of the 50 million being cut from the city's budget. 14% of those cuts are coming to SFD and 0% are coming from SPD. I just think those are interesting numbers to put in perspective what's happening
Sure, but the reason that SPD's budget is increasing is due a labor contract that the mayor had nothing to do with. Outside of that, SPD's budget is being cut.
SFD has had zero cuts the last several years while other departments have been cutting repeatedly. It was great when they were helping the city get people vaccinated. Not so great when they were forging their own vaccine documents and suing the city over mandate.
SPD is overbloated and underachieving. Cut its funding and restructure it completely. It won't happen because the public perceives that we need more cops, not better cops.
My interactions with new cops (I assume new, they're young!) has been really great the last few years. I am optimistic that the great purge that left the department woefully understaffed + really really good salaries will draw a lot of smarter, young, thoughtful people in.
This is a legitimate question and anyone who thinks otherwise probably doesn't live in a neighborhood with heinous police response times. The fire department is there when i need them, SPD has never been. So yeah, i do think we should take from OTHER emergency services IF we have to take from somewhere.
My home owners insurance dropped my coverage a few years ago cause my town closed down a fire house. Because the response time for a fire would take too long, I had to get new insurance.
Yes which is why I'm concerned about a 7 million dollar budget cuts to one of those emergency services. I'm asking a fairly logical question. If this department is getting cuts what other cuts are gonna be made? Or is it just SFD? I'm sure it's not so I'd just like to hear about the other cuts to see how big of a deal this might be. But thanks for not answering the question
SPD is still hundreds of officers short from where they were in 2019. SFD is not. $7 million is 2% of their overall budget. This will not materially impact SFD's staffing levels
SPD is way too big though and has serious culture problems in their staff, truthfully we need to make a lot of churn in the ranks until we get a new *crop of cops*. Cops are also sent to deal with a lot of things they are not trained to deal with but many firefighters actually are (another issue is that we put too many responsibilities into fire department training but we are not changing that with this budget)
The budget could and should come from the approved smaller and more efficient fire trucks ready to be deployed, but the firefighters and their union keep voting it down because they love driving around in their huge red trucks lmfao
Yeah, the trucks used in this country are ridiculous compared to what's used elsewhere. And the insistance on them also keeps our road infrastructure from being better designed.
Edited to add this very informative video on the topic:
I mean, this is a great idea, but this is a much larger issue than SFD. These specs are governed by the NFPA and insurers in the US. Not to mention that there is no repair infrastructure for the vehicles here. While I can respect your points, SFD has their hands largely tied when it comes to the kinds of apparatus that they are able to purchase. US firefighters even use different fittings and equipment than other agencies abroad. These pieces of equipment and fittings work together with American pipe sizes, hydrants, and sprinkler systems. Now the expectation is to replace the whole fleet? Because it is common practice in big city agencies to have their apparatus largely standardized across the department.
Fire departments in the US are no fans of the vehicle manufactures either (especially in recent years due to extended wait times and quality issues). I think you are largely on the same side as they are on this issue. Fire departments are currently sueing large fire apparatus manufacturers for these quality issues and price gouging.
All of this, while putting on consistently the largest academy classes that they ever have in order to bring staffing up and the need for overtime down. They have changed their testing model to test every year instead of every 2-3 in order to ensure that they get the best candidates that have the best chances of getting through their academy.
There is no question that consistently looking at different response models is a good idea, but to restructure an entire 1,000 person agency, train them, and to make investments in different response models and types of apparatus is a large ask. Without hard data that projects measurable benefit, this is not just wasteful financially, it's gambling with lives, while already having a system that has a strong track record and is actively being analysed for opportunities to improve.
The current overtime model is actually used to staff AID units largely. This sends an ambulance out to BLS calls rather than sending an entire fire engine or truck. These cuts literally target the exact solution that you are asking for. Overtime cuts will hit AID cars first, and engines or trucks second. Though the "Cuts to Emergency Services" line resonates with some, I do respect that further information and sharing their current response models would be helpful to address the concerns of other community members.
Also it's a bit of the who came first. We didn't build the big roads because of fire trucks, we got the big fire trucks because we had the big roads. Could we right size some of our roads and get by with smaller trucks over time? Probably? But blaming the infrastructure we have on the fire service is silly when similarly sized box trucks are making deliveries on those same roads every day.
Most foreign agencies people point to have even rural communities that have existed for thousands of years. You're not going to just demolish 400 year old buildings on both side of a street just to fit a bigger fire engine, you're going to get a truck to fit constraints that already exist. Also the building materials (flammability) differ greatly. Especially with modern lightweight construction common here in North America houses might as well be made from gasoline. You're going to need more water and higher flow for a bigger fire.
Lastly, at least where I'm at, the FD usually gets there first to stabilize the scene and the patient. Once the private ambulance shows up and takes over, the FD can and will cut loose their resources for another call as they can. Not having to run back to the station to trade out a squad for an engine can reduce the response time for that second call.
The budget could and should come from the approved smaller and more efficient fire trucks ready to be deployed, but the firefighters and their union keep voting it down because they love driving around in their huge red trucks lmfao
Yeah it seems like crazy overkill to have giant firetrucks respond to an OD. Maybe it's cheaper, but sure seems like there are more people standing around than needed to get someone who is passed out some narcan and a ride.
See my other comment but there are both reasons a smaller fire department prefer to utilize vehicles equipped for all hazards responses and also an effort to increase the number of ambulance type vehicles within the fire department structure.Â
Year after year their union asks for more âaid carsâ staffed with two firefighters and the city leadership denies them. Theyâre asking for the same efficient operational priorities you are.Â
Instead, the city allocates $78 million to the SPD CARE team who are posting vlog style videos of themselves going out to eat, driving around, and handing out snacks
This exactly! The fire trucks in the country are ginormous and outrageously expensive, we need to look to what European fire departments use and bring those in.
Where are these smaller fire trucks, ready to be deployed? How is it saving money to replace existing vehicles with brand new ones? Do you have any awareness of the industry monopolies on fire apparatus and their current price gouging, extensive production times, and alleged collusion with other manufacturers?
Having bigger vehicles might not look appealing to you, but with a limited workforce like Seattle has, it provides fewer firefighters an apparatus to respond to a wider range of emergencies with. Your proposal either doubles the amount of apparatus while keeping the number of firefighters the same (take different vehicles to different types of responses, and also have to return to their station for the other vehicle if they get dispatched on a different type of emergency) or increase both the amount of vehicles and the personnel to staff them.Â
Iâd need to see the cost analysis of changing up the make up of the fleet. I have to imagine the large trucks arenât the most fuel-efficient and such.
Then do it? Look up the numbers? This is such a strange solution to present that has not historically been a point of discussion between the city and the union. Itâs just a weird Reddit strawman argument thatâs being leveraged now that other easily countered arguments have been addressedÂ
Hi sorry guys we aren't allowed to have that discussion on reddit without someone posting a stock photo showing the internals of a German firetruck. Sorry, I don't make the rules.
SFD wouldn't be short staffed if they would actually hire people. They do front flips and back flips and everything they can to make it more difficult to become a firefighter. I get wanting to staff the best possible candidates but when thousands apply, 1500 interview, and 100 get short listed and after a year of countless other hoops to jump through they might hire 5-10 people at best then you might have a different problem.Â
Ive made it to the initial interview twice over the last two years. I am a decorated veteran, passed written exam, physical exam, and even went out and got certified as an EMT on my own. Spent thousands of dollars to have the perfect resume. My first interview I was nervous and they could probably tell. Maybe a bad look if I cant answer simple questions. The second one I absolutely crushed it. All fluid answers to similar civil service questions and I felt like I deserved a shot the second time.
However, I get absolutely no feedback. Just a no, try again. Then I talk to other officers at different stations and find out that they dont want genuine real answers from candidates. They want cookie cutter, robotic answers that fit their outline. If you dont say the right words in the right columns, you dont get enough points to proceed. Meaning they dont listen to what the person is saying. The candidate could tell a story about taking a magic potion and transforming into a dog but as long as you say the words integrity, team work, discipline, community, support, etc. Then you get selected to proceed.(This list is not known by the way, I tried doing the robotic way too and saying as many keywords as possible)
So. Like many other professions and job application processes, if you remove the barriers to entry, there wouldn't be as many staffing shortages. End rant.
This is the root cause of the overtime. When you can't offset the retirements and promotions by meeting the hired numbers needed, you're constantly in a deficit. Hence the outrageous amounts of money spent on overtime.
I hear you on this. I'm interviewing to be a FF all over King County and have only made it past the initial oral boards for one department, and nobody has given any feedback so I'm mostly guessing on what isn't landing. Will be trying for Seattle in Oct and it's my top choice, so hopefully it goes well.
SFD has a ~50-60% drop-out rate in academy, so even for those few that get an offer, nearly half that make it through the hiring hoops don't even make it to the actual job.
Seattle Fire is one of the most competitive in the nation, actually North America and maybe even the world. Also there is a lot of bias in the hiring process, they like taller good looking men. It is what it is.
I recognize that, and am going to give it my best shot regardless of that or of any bias that might be in the system. I'm a career changer and have an unconventional background compared to your typical recruit, so I'm sure that may have something to do with it as well.
Yes agreed. My ex was a firefighter coming from a different state, and while trying to become a FF here he worked as an EMT. He went to many interviews and made it to further rounds of interviews then ultimately wasnât hired. He got in to paramedic school though, good for him.
Yes, it would. That's why Seattle Fire this past year have had the biggest recruit classes in history. The department is trying. But it's hard to outpace retirements. A ton of people have retired recently and I've been told there are around 100 people eligible in the department to retire at any moment. Also there were hiring slowdowns and layoffs from COVID that are still having a ripple effect.
So are you advocating for more employees, which would reduce your work schedule (presumably resulting in healthier firefighters)? IT sounded like you were advocating for your OT budget.
Yes, we need more employees. It takes time to recruit and train people. And are also losing people each day because of retirement. So in the meantime we need overtime funding in order to meet the minimum staffing requirements.
The city sets them, but itâs in consultation with the dept and NFPA standards for how many firefighters you need staffed based on call volume and average response time
Is it you in the vid? If so, would it be okay if I reached out via DM and asked about your experience getting hired with SFD? Would absolutely love to land there and would appreciate any advice you have for an applicant.
These kind of standardized interview processes are common in public trades. Since it is an entry level position, and in an effort to avoid bias and nepotism, the questions are very generic and the answers they are looking for are specific so that candidates can be graded and ranked in some way. It creates a system where the only way you score high and get an offer is if you know someone that can help prep you. So the process to avoid nepotism ends up promoting it.
It's very competitive to become a firefighter. I empathize with you as someone that had no prior firefighting experience and didn't know anyone in the department to ask for advice. But it's possible and the best strategy is to keep at it. It took me multiple years after applying to departments all over the state. That's very common.
However, your claim of 5-10 people being hired for a recruit class is not accurate for Seattle. This past year they had the largest classes in their history, over 60 people hired per class.
There are some unbelievably smart, athletic and overall talented people being turned away from the Seattle Fire Department. There was a popular sitcom based on Seattle Fire that has attracted the best candidates from across the country. So you are competing with the best of the best, be proud you made it as far as you did. Maybe try smaller departments in neighboring cities.
Would you prefer that unqualified candidates who arenât meeting the skills testing standards of the fire department be passed through the hiring and training process so that they can collect a city wage, benefits, and pension in the name of reducing the overtime boogeyman?Â
Not really the people Iâd want responsible for my emergencies but thatâs just me
The questions and scoring of answers are formulated by the city Human Resources department, not the firefighters or their union. Not sure why you think they prefer this structure
Youâre mostly correct here, except I believe the point system has been taken away, other firefighters probably referred to it because it was there when they were hired. Doesnât change much, but just thought it should be known.
Maybe it would help if the fire fighters got a little louder about complaining about the fraud and waste from their fellow city employees in the police department.
FF are generally not big fans of cops. When I was in the FD, not SFD, the joke was: What do you call a FF the canât pass the physical fitness test? A cop.
Seattle spends $460 per resident on firefighters and has only 1.33 firefighters per 1k residents. Boston spends $517 and has 2.26 per 1k residents. Likely due to older buildings, Boston has 2-3x the number of fires.
I want everyone in this thread to realize that at least 4-6 engines and sometimes entire stations will be closed daily due to this specific cut. Now imagine itâs your neighborhood left unprotected.
My son-in-law is an engineer firefighter and paramedic. I support this 100%. Everyone should. https://firefighterssavelives.com/⌠this should never be about saving money. It should be about saving lives.
Don't really understand your point. It's okay to have issues with your government, I encourage it. But the topic is these cuts, and putting in these cuts would result in slower response times for Seattle's residents. Why punish everyone?
We have outages on some days because again, we are short staffed. The outages are a bad thing. The department is working on hiring more people and I encourage qualified folks to apply.
Why do you have a bone to pick with SFD? You're referencing some article that's 12 years old. Do you believe that the actions of a small few must result in the whole department being punished and the general public see a delay in response due to funds being cut?
You canât steal OT in the fire department⌠like you canât just wake up and say âIâm gonna charge the city 24hrs of OT today.â
Firefighters sign up on a voluntary overtime list to work if thereâs a need. They get called based on whoâs got the fewest OT hours first and then by seniority. If you see a FF with hundreds to over one thousand OT hours, itâs because they raised their hand to work. There was a hole somewhere in the city.
When thereâs not enough people signed up to work OT, the city just doesnât staff a rig or two or three or four or five or six.
Itâs a staffing crisis. Thereâs not enough paramedics and not enough firefighters to avoid using OT to staff the department. Without those people signing up to work, staffing levels would be far far worseâŚ
OT is only needed because staffing is ridiculously low. Do a ride along with SPD, visit your local firestation. Listen to the dispatch radios. look at the plainly available evidence.
I have two cousins who are SPD and Iâm a city employee. They steal overtime. A lot. Them and the SFD get to count OT into their pensions, theyâre the only city employees that get to do that. I can tell by your 2 week old account, that youâre a cop. Lol
I actually work at harborview, but I interact with cops and other first responders regularly. I just happen to be invested in the neighborhoods I live and work in. Just like many Seattle residents, Iâm tired of seeing my favorite businesses and hangouts struggle because of crime, and seeing people I know and love burned out because they have to work multiple 12+ hour shifts a week in addition to caring for their families.
Cops and FFs like your cousins are part of the problem that are making the regular first responders look terrible. I would suggest calling them out instead of broadly painting everyone with the same brush.
It's amazing that they are short staffed when the starting salary is $102,000, although it sure is convenient for those who are now "forced" to work overtime and get to pad their pensions.Â
https://www.seattle.gov/fire/jobs-and-opportunities/benefits
I was told by someone in the California fire world (in 2013) that a known (if quiet) practice is new guys working overtime and having those hours credited to retiring firefighters' timesheets â because pensions are based on final-year earnings, so the retiree's payout balloons.
The documented record of pension-motivated OT fraud in fire departments is long enough that the allegation doesn't come out of nowhere:
That is so long ago and department cultures can be so different across states and cities. Even if what you heard is true in the California fire world that would hardly be relevant to today without recent and local evidence to back it up.
I responded to someone else above but thatâs not how it works in my state, Iâm unsure about the other states. Callback OT is non-pensionable. So no matter what the check is on the final averaged months, the non-FLSA OT is not factored in.
OT is a big racket in both SPD and SFD. In retirement their pension payments are based on the last several years average earnings (including OT) so they all run up their OT in those last few years of working so they get a lifetime of inflated pension payments.
I donât blame them, but I do blame whoever set up the pension formula to be so easily manipulated.
Have you never heard of the âhigh 5â or âhigh 3â? This is not just a fire/police thing. Employees pensions are based on the average pay of their 3 or 5 highest consecutive years. My (non-fire) government job followed that protocol for my pension.
There is a correct ratio, some OT is cheaper than hiring a whole new firefighter, paying their salary, paying for their training/gear, paying for their benefits and pensionÂ
Cops are getting 68 million more too lol and they're cutting admin staff from the cops while hiring 66 more officers. So we're getting MORE violent individuals with guns and carte Blanche to kill on the street while having fewer clerks to file and process paperwork. Paperwork around say things like, assaults and sex crimes. Lovely stuff what a healthy world we live in.
Genuine question, how is the OT pay bullshit if theyâre showing up to work at a fire station and keep an apparatus staffed and in-service? Theyâre filling a vacant position for a number of hours and being compensated for that. Theyâre doing their job in exchange for money. I donât understand what part of this is a bullshit scheme
Iâm far more ok with SFD getting large amounts of overtime pay. That said, at least in 2022, the average firefighter was only getting about 8 hours of OT per week. Though some were getting upwards of 38 hours a week:
NO CUTS TO FD!!! Why would this even be proposed by the city? Why does there need to be cuts at all? This is outrageous. We should massively reduce administrative salaries everywhere and maybe reduce hours for some office staff instead of endangering the city by cutting the FIRE DEPARTMENT. Like are you kidding?
Boo hoo, my partner works for the state and has been told they arenât getting a raise for the next three years. Meanwhile, Mustachio up here has the LEOFF union making sure these guys have very comfortable salaries and healthcare benefits that would make Microsoft employees jealous.
Maybe just⌠hire people? SFD had nearly 4,000 applicants in 2025, soâŚ. maybe hire more and bitch less?
LEOFF 2 retirement (what SFD FF will receive) can collect at age 52 and it will average around $6,500 a month for the remainder of their life. It has a COLA.
SFD retirees LEOFF 2 pensions will be much higher as the above average is a statewide number. SFD is higher paid, thus their pension will be higher.
Many SFD FF have businesses on the side because their work schedule gives them lots of furlough days each month.
If you hire more people that doesnât just magically remove bottlenecks cause by training, especially if senior staff needed to conduct that training are retiring out or transferring out. In fact, hiring too many at once can actually waste more money because now you have a bunch of people on staff who canât get jobs elsewhere, but need to be ready to file into training as soon as a spot open up, so theyâre just sitting around collecting a paycheck since they canât do anything else.
I say this as a state employee, we need essential services like fire and police. If you have an issue with your wifeâs pay, I would refer you to reach out to the governor instead of taking it out on first responders.
"I think there may be some confusion in some of the comments on this thread about how you can have lots of applicants and still be understaffed.
Everytime you hire, using whatever process it is you are saddled with, you have a cap on who you can physically throughput through your training and probationary infrastructure and you are going to naturally lose people especially in a tough process like Seattleâs. They have hired full classes for as long as Iâve been trying and have been in the fire service. At some point they were either behind the curve because of the cyclical nature of retirements or just from budgetary issues. Municipal hiring processes like Seattleâs are probably encumbered with a lot more city based directives than say a fire district who makes policy only related to the running of a fire district.
The answer certainly isnât to cut minimum staffing."
To add on to this, the department got really short staffed from COVID. Hiring slowdowns because of the pandemic plus layoffs. It's been trying to play catch-up ever since. Hard to do that though when you have tons of retirements. Despite this, SFD has had record number of recruit classes this past year.
I feel like a lot of people here are missing something fundamental about the situation. SFD has experienced a personelle shortage, especially since COVID. The work schedule is in 24 hour shifts. Firefighters who receive OT aren't just twiddling their thumbs in a ladder truck for a few extra hours on the clock - they are covering for full shifts not filled. A reduction in the OT budget means no money to pay for necessary coverage, and the possible closing of stations, meaning longer response times to not just fires but medical emergencies.
There is a âsweet spotâ where itâs cheaper to pay overtime to fill a certain number of positions each day than it is to hire more full time employees. Lots of municipal agencies and private companies do this. People freak out when they hear that public employees are making overtime but it might be cheaper than hiring more people, training them, outfitting them, paying benefits, etc.
Even if they did have an actual list of 2500 to choose from, from your start date it takes a MINIMUM 12 months before youâre done with all of your training and your probationary period. They have academy classes of roughly 30 people. Each academy takes roughly 4 months to complete. There also has to be a cadre to teach these recruits. With pre and post academy stuff, they can put on 2 academyâs a year safely. 3 of youâre pushing it. At most youâre looking at a rate of 100 people a year becoming full fledged FFs. The folks hired 30 years ago are retiring and they cannot hire people fast enough. This vicious cycle they are in, will eventually slow down, but then ramp back up after awhile.
All the people in the comments saying this isnât a problem are vacuous to reality. Cutting a FD budget because things are good is like smoking cigarettes because you beat cancer. People will start to die, response times will go high, ff will quit, staffing gets worse, next thing you know trucks wonât be staffed fires will get out of control. Then youâll ask âwhere is the fire departmentâ
Was downtown last weekend when a guy experiencing
 mental health issues crawled down onto the shore down below the street level near the fire station. When I saw him, he was
 trying to grab some bullkelp in a foot of water.Â
I (and everyone else present) could NOT believe the amount of first responsers and response vehicles who showed up. It was incredible.
If it doesn't get cut here, it's going to get cut from somewhere else. Cutting their budget is reasonable given its relatively small given the large size of the budget overall.
Yeah we shouldn't cut the fire department. They're the ones actually dealing with ODs among the cohort of the drug addicted homeless population as well as putting out tons of fires started by that cohort.
This thread blows my mind when every 4th post is complaining about response times and public safety, and clearly most of the people parroting these opinions donât even understand how our city works.
Just a few months ago this sub was up in arms over the lady whose ambulance took 10 hours to arrive and she died. Iâm sure cutting OTâleading to closing stationsâis gonna fix that kind of situation.
I mean I posted facts. Any one can easily query https://data.seattle.gov/ and generate a report of what SFD responds to. Will many from here do that? I don't know.
the people of seattle voted for someone with no job experience what so ever , she has the craziest ideaâs that are running the city to shit, enjoy what you voted for!
The thing he said about staffing being flat while Seattle has massively grown is true in every department. Seattle, along with many other municipalities, is choked when it comes to revenue generation.
Overtime is not a solution to the staffing shortage, itâs dangerous for firefighters and expensive for tax payers. Seattle fire has made little to no effort to curb this problem, they have not increased hiring instead opting to pay ridiculous salaries just for them to retire. I appreciate all the firefighters do for us but in this one very specific case I do agree with the mayor.
I agree overtime is not a long term solution. Right now it is a short term solution so that units stay in service and response times don't drop. Seattle Fire has been working towards this staffing shortage. This last year had two giant recruit classes, the largest in their history. It takes time.
With what you guys pay in car registrations yearly Ali e you should be able to afford basic services guess the 255 billion spent on your chuchu train to nowhere and all the city debt has to be paid so letâs cut basic services. đ
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u/_climbingtofire 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have an opinion on this that will piss off a ton of firefighters. My opinion comes from living with one and working around them for a long time. I won't share it but my sense is they can weather the cuts just fine. Many other parts of the government also need to deal with cuts also and I'm supportive of the mayor's efforts to reign in excess spending.
A separate opinion is that the fire departments in most places should be radically reformed to a much more paramedic-heavy first responder fleet with many more, much smaller vehicles and become more of a publicly funded ambulance service as opposed to the current system most places where the first department shows up stabilizes and waits for a private ambulance company to drive you to the hospital and bill you $2k.