By Bonnie Culverhouse
It may be a few years in the making, but somewhere in the future the City of Minden may see savings in the fire department’s budget since the council recently voted to restructure it.
Minden Fire Chief Brian Williams said he has wanted to change the department since he was appointed chief because the configuration before the vote showed “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.”
“I understand why they did it that way,” Williams said of the past structure. “They made nine captain spots, so they had nine captains and two assistant chiefs – that’s 11 out of 15 (paid positions). The reason they did it was because their pay was low, and the only way to give them more pay was to promote them to the next level for an increase.”
Just before Williams was appointed chief, the city raised the firefighters’ pay.
“So, now we need to restructure so we don’t have too many officers and not enough firemen,” he said.
Currently, there are three shifts. The department has two assistant chiefs – one on each shift – and the battalion chief (a position between assistant chief and captain) is on the other shift. There are nine captains and four firefighters.
Management levels top to bottom are chief, assistant chief(s), battalion chief, captains, fire operators, firefighters.
Change will begin through upcoming retirements, Williams pointed out, which won’t happen for at least a few more years.
With the council-approved restructure, there will be one assistant chief on each shift with a battalion chief running each shift and a captain under the battalion chief.
“It will give us more hands-on firefighters and the proper number of officers when you’re looking at span of control,” he said. “So we will have a better ratio.”
Williams said when he applied and interviewed for the chief’s position, he was open about the changes, so everyone was aware it was in the works.
“The other benefit is we have an assistant chief to ensure all shifts run seamlessly – all shifts are run exactly the same,” Williams said. “Right now, they all get the job done, but they all do it differently. And it gives us an extra hand during the day time. Although he (the assistant chief) is in an administrative role, he is operational, so he can still fight fires at the scene or whatever he needs to do.”
Williams said as employees retire who have been on staff for many years, new positions will be created.
“The battalion chief positions will cost less than an assistant chief position,” he said. “With the new pay scale the city put into place before I took over, there are caps on certain things, after someone’s been here for a number of years, they’re capped on what they can make … they can’t make any more. One of those being the 2 percents that state law requires you pay up to 20 years. Now there’s no way for you to make any more after 20 years. If you’re going to promote to a battalion or assistant chief, you can stay an extra three years or five years, but you wouldn’t stay an extra 35 or 40 years. It will help with people being able to promote sooner. After five years, they are eligible to take the test for fire captain if a position becomes available.”
Williams said one of his future goals is to reopen Fire Station #2 on Middle Landing, which will require hiring more firefighters and promoting more to captains.
“I’m not putting a timeline on that, though,” he said.
In the meantime, all firefighters are training on new equipment and working on new policies and procedures. The chief has presented the city council with ordinances that will ensure fire alarms work properly and key boxes are on site at businesses, allowing the department easy access when there is a fire. See upcoming Webster Parish Journal publications for those stories.