Staten Island Advance 5/10/09

Reminiscent of a feud that played out in the months following Sept. 11, the city's firefighter union and Mayor Michael Bloomberg are butting heads over closing FDNY engine companies, at least one of them on Staten Island.

Bloomberg's recent executive budget offers the FDNY a tough choice: Either decrease the staffing at 64 engine companies from five to four firefighters, or the city will close 16 companies permanently, including Engine 161 in South Beach.

The mayor has made it clear he would prefer the former, which he projects would save the city about $17 million through attrition.

But Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, implied that Bloomberg is using the threat of closing fire companies as negotiating ploy. Cassidy won't go for either option.

"They don't want to close firehouses because of public backlash, but in the end they want to do something that would compromise public safety," he said in a recent television interview. "We don't think we'll compromise."

In defending his position, the UFA chief cited a 1987 Fire Department study that concluded "an engine company with a crew of four is ineffective," and would take twice as long to get water on a fire as a five man operation. The department currently has 133 engines staffed with four firefighters and another 64 with five.

Others questioned whether the city could actually realize enough savings with the cuts, since attrition has slowed considerably during the economic recession and more than half of the FDNY's 11,233 members joined the department after Sept. 11.

Staffing levels at FDNY engine companies, the result of a collective bargaining agreement in the early 1970s, cannot be changed unless the union concedes. Though the two sides say they are still talking, it may ultimately take a push by the City Council to end this fight.

COUNCIL HEARING ON FDNY BUDGET
The Council has slated a hearing on the Fire Department's budget for Tuesday.
Several Council members have said they would not approve any budget if it required closing fire companies. But they'll have to find that money elsewhere -- no easy task in this bare bones spending plan.
On top of that, Speaker Christine Quinn has been publicly opposed to Bloomberg's push to raise the city's sales tax, which he projects will raise half a billion dollars. That debate will no doubt play a big role in the upcoming budget negotiations, and the pool of funds available to restore the mayor's cuts.
"I hope the Council will step up. The Council has got make a commitment to fire protection," said James Vacca (D-Bronx), head of the Council's Fire and Criminal Justices Committee.
At a rally outside City Hall two months ago, Cassidy warned that any legislator who supports closing firehouses would lose the support of the UFA "and every family member of every UFA member that lives in the City of New York."

CUTS MAY COST VOTES

Several City Hall insiders were skeptical that losing the firefighters support would cost Bloomberg a bid for a third term in office. This is not the first time he has ordered unpopular cuts to the Fire Department, and each time came he came out fairly unscathed. In 2002, Bloomberg wanted the FDNY to reduce staffing at 53 engine companies. When the UFA sued on the grounds it violated their contract, the mayor threatened layoffs. The staffing cuts were averted, but Bloomberg eventually closed six firehouses the next year.
Unlike those instances, however, these recent cuts come months before the mayor is seeking a third term in office.
The FDNY has yet to release a list of all the engine companies that could be disbanded. The fate of Engine 161 was already sealed when it was included in a list of four companies slated to close overnight earlier this year. According to the FDNY's plan, the McClean Avenue company and 10 others will be disbanded around July 1 - when fiscal year 2010 begins. About 30 Emergency Medical Service tours will also be shut down at that time. Another five companies would be shuttered by January 1, 2010.
If those cuts are made, IBO study found, staffing in the FDNY would be at its lowest level since 1980 -- which comes at a time when the department is handling a historic volume of emergencies. Over the past four years, firefighters have responded to the most emergency calls in the history of the FDNY, according to Fire Department data.
Bloomberg defended his proposal at a press event last week, saying he trusts the fire chiefs "have come up with the safest way to continue to protect this city with less resources."

"We don't have enough money. I would like a firehouse on every corner, but that's not the real world," he said.

--- Contributed by Peter N. Spencer