City To Vote On Firefighter Layoffs Today

This morning, the Minneapolis City Council will vote on a measure that could result in 10 firefighters losing their jobs in an attempt to prevent further Fire Department layoffs.

The move comes as councilmembers and Mayor RT Rybak look to soften the blow of so-called "waterfall" budget cuts that were written into the city's 2011 budget in case the state cut local government aid and other appropriations.

The Council's Ways and Means Committee voted on Monday to take $1.75 million from the city contingency fund—used to pay for snowplowing and repairs to tornado damage, for example—to prevent further layoffs.

In a Council meeting Thursday morning, Fire Chief Alex Johnson said the cuts would drop the number of firefighters reporting for duty per day to 93, the bare minimum mandated by the City Council to maintain fast response times. However, Johnson said, this would likely mean the department would find itself under-strength some days of the month, given the dangerous and injury-prone nature of firefighting.

In order to make up these shortfalls, Johnson said, he would have to decide on a day-to-day basis whether or not to park fire trucks from less-busy stations for the day and distribute their crews to fill in for their injured, sick, or vacationing co-workers. Assuming the current numbers of injured firefighters does not change, Johnson said his department would be short-staffed on 78 out of the 109 days remaining in 2011 once the 10 firefighters are let go.

In the same council meeting, Councilmember Gary Schiff (Ward 9) pointed out that the city would loose money, an estimated $228,416, paying for benefits acrued and unemployment. 

Some council members, including Meg Tuthill (Ward 10), expressed frustration that the cuts were being made without much discussion about how they will impact individual wards. In response, Betsy Hodges (Ward 13) said discussion of fire department layoffs had happened in December when the council approved the "waterfall" provisions of the current budget.