Consultants Recommend Additional Foxborough Fire Station

FOXBOROUGH, MA — A consultant group hired by the town to study Foxborough's public safety departments recommended the construction of a fire substation and new administrative staff be hired in the police and fire departments. The consulting firm, Municipal Resources, Inc., of Meredith, New Hampshire, made the recommendations at Tuesday's selectmen meeting after spending the last nine months conducting the study.

If the town were to support a new substation, it's most likely location would be at state-owned land adjacent to Walnut Pond on Route 140.

Brian Duggan from Municipal Resources in his presentation said the department could see better response times with an extra station. Currently, 33 percent of response times are over six minutes. Duggan said the department is among the top five of Municipal Resources' 165 clients, but certain factors could harm response times more in the future.

"We anticipate that based on complexity of traffic, increasing population and more events being scheduled, that this will increase ...," Duggan told the selectmen. "There is a clear need for a substation and we’re suggesting the community really needs to get behind that and support it," Duggan said.

As for the creation of new administrative positions, Municipal Resources said these new positions should be staffed by civilians and lessen the burden on police officers and firefighters. The recommendations included adding a half-dozen new positions. Some would serve both departments, but the positions would mostly focus on the police department.

"What we did is focus on all the positions a civilian could do that are currently being filled by a police officer," David Kurz from Municipal Resources said.

Specifically, one of the positions Kurz suggested was hiring a human resources officer, which he said would help with having the necessary staff for events at Gillette Stadium.

"Every event you have at Gillette requires the hiring and retention of a whole bunch of people that come in here and organize that," Kurz said. "That takes up time that could be better served by a civilian."

Other positions the firm suggested included an information technology specialist, a fleet maintenance manager, data analyst, evidence management administrator and a mental health expert/social worker. Town Manager William Keegan said dealing with mental health issues is a huge challenge for police departments.

"The number one issue facing police departments is mental health because there just aren't the resources available to manage it on a day-to-day basis." Keegan said.

Police Chief Michael Grace said he supports the recommendations, particularly with hiring and managing personnel for events at Gillette Stadium. He said these hirings require extensive background checks and are time consuming.

Selectman David Feldman questioned if many of the positions could be filled by civilians and said "95 percent" of the responsibilities legally need to be done by law enforcement officials.

MRI president Alan Gould said civilians would be restricted from performing many sensitive jobs, but said the stadium-related jobs create liabilities for the police department that need to be addressed. He said even officers from outside agencies working stadium details are essentially the town's responsibility when working events at the stadium.

Feldman also asked if the firm considered the human resources and information technology experts that are already provided to police and fire by the central administration. Selectwoman Leah Gibson agreed and said shared services are already available in some areas.

"Police officers aren't doing the IT work," Gibson said. "We already have shared services in some areas."

Keegan said that's not entirely true and that police do some pieces of it, and with other administrative things where there are shared services, police have to do a lot of the research work. Gibson acknowledged this and said there are areas that need help but wants to make sure the current resources were taken into consideration.

"I know that there's certain areas that need a lot of that, but did we look at areas where shared services are already in place?" Gibson said.

Grace said in regards to human resources, the police does use the town's resources, but police do need to take over with the background checks for hiring. He said an investigator is assigned to each candidate.

There's no projection on when any new hirings would need to take place, but said the study conducted was meant for as a long-term forecasts of public safety needs.