The city and the fire departments union have reached a compromise.
After weeks of taking between 2 to 5 fire trucks off the streets, now they’ll park just two at any one time.
“We started taking squads, two people units, off track, out of use, during those shifts when we had too many people off,” Wichita Fire Marshal, Stu Bevis said.
In other words, they had more equipment than firefighters. Bevis said a lot of it has to do with more firefighters taking off for unexpected reasons, like injury or illness. “The underlying issue is the fact that due to the leaves and where we are on our budget, that we were going to overspend our budget and bust our budget come the end of the year,” Bevis said.
But some were concerned that in cutting these services, the department may take longer to respond to emergencies.
Previously the city and the fire union agreed to a goal of having 117 firefighters on the clock at all times, to make sure there are enough for any and all emergencies that the city may have. The new agreement puts 115 firefighters on the clock.
“There’s been some concern,” Bevis said.
(Read more: KAKE – News)