![]() Jonah Peters, secretary for International Association of Firefighters, Local 1319, told the Finance Committee on Tuesday that budget cuts have resulted in "unprecedented levels of mandatory overtime" and have created, for the first time, "a real retention problem." The recent budget cuts, coupled with the demands of the pandemic and the pressures of perennial wildfire seasons, have made the situation worse, leading to departures and more worker-compensation claims due to injuries and stress. The legal dispute over Measure D continues to drag on, with the court issuing a finding in September that chided the city for its failures to engage with the union but, to the union's chagrin, stopped short of invalidating Measure D. That proposal, known as Measure D, was approved by voters and remains in place despite court findings that the city violated state law by failing to negotiate in good faith with employees before placing it on the ballot. The following year, the council spearheaded a measure that eliminated a provision requiring binding arbitration for contract disputes with public safety unions. In 2010, city voters shot down a measure by the fire union that would have frozen staffing levels in the department. The city had also taken actions that curtailed the firefighters' union to negotiate its staffing levels. It also reduced the minimum number of employees that must be on duty at any given time and, most recently, approved "brownout" at Station 2 in College Terrace, which is effectively shut down during periods when the department is not fully staffed. Over the past decade, the department has eliminated a "minimum staffing" provision in the firefighters' union contract pared back its agreement with Stanford University for fire services, which entailed elimination of 11 positions and adopted a "cross-staffing" model, in which a three-person crew is charged with operating different vehicles. The downward trend in department staffing began well before the pandemic. This year, that number went down to zero, Blackshire said. ![]() ![]() Last year, the city participated in 14 mutual-aid deployments to battle wildfires, Blackshire told the City Council Finance Committee on Tuesday during its discussion of financial trends. The shrinking roster has forced the department to curtail services that it used to provide, including public education to prevent fires and deployment to other parts of the state to help fight wildfires. That's a reduction of 31.5 positions from 2012, when the city had 121.7 full-time employees, according to city staff. The city has cut 8.5 full-time-equivalent positions in the department since the start of COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the department with about 90.2 full-time positions. Embarcadero Media file photo by Veronica Weber.īudget cuts and position reductions have taken their toll on the Palo Alto Fire Department, where fewer people are now responding to more medical calls and personnel are increasingly reporting feeling burned out, according to Fire Chief Geo Blackshire. Palo Alto Fire Department firefighters respond to a fire on Wilton Avenue in 2017.
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