Stimulus prevents closure of Mass. fire department

By Shawn Regan
The Eagle-Tribune

HAVERHILL, Mass. — It's only a little more than half of what the city asked for, but it's enough to immediately hire three firefighters and keep the Bradford fire station open for at least a few months and "probably" until the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

Haverhill is to receive $262,645 in federal stimulus money for the firefighter hires and $63,786 to retain two police officers slated to be laid off this month, state Rep. Brian Dempsey, D-Haverhill, said yesterday.

Statewide, 83 communities are to share $20 million in the second round of public safety awards.

The money was set aside by Gov. Deval Patrick from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to address public safety staffing reductions caused by layoffs or vacancies due to retirements, according to a joint press release from state Reps. Dempsey, Barbara L'Italien, D-Andover, and Harriett Stanley, D-West Newbury, and state Sen. Steven Baddour.

Haverhill is the only local community to win money in this round. Lawrence received $520,000 and Methuen received $205,000 in the first round of fire awards last month. The first round was specifically for communities that had already laid off firefighters.

Haverhill is down to 85 firefighters out of 95 that are funded in this year's city budget. No new firefighters have been hired in more than four years. The city had applied for $456,000 to hire four firefighters and boost the department's overtime account. Dempsey said the governor decided to fund as many requests as possible, which meant awarding communities less money than they had asked for. No city or town got the full amount it applied for, he said.

Mayor James Fiorentini said the city planned to close the Bradford station on Route 125 in January or February had the city not received the stimulus money.

"With this money we can keep Bradford open for at least several more months and probably for the rest of the fiscal year," the mayor said. "These funds mean we have more personnel and resources to add immediately to our public safety departments during this difficult recession."

Fiorentini said the city would not have received the stimulus money had he previously "given in to public pressure to cut police or education" to guarantee the city's ability to keep the Bradford fire station.

"If we had made other cuts we would not have had a hardship case and we would not have received this money," he said.

The mayor said fire Chief Richard Borden has already requested from the state civil service office a list of firefighters from which the city can hire. The police money will be used to retain two officers who were scheduled to be laid off as soon as this month, Fiorentini said. The mayor had previously used $16,000 in reserve cash to pay the police officers' salaries through Nov. 15.

"Our success in obtaining these funds is a testament to a team approach we undertook with our state legislative delegation, Borden and police Chief Alan DeNaro, who each applied for the respective grants, along with Local 1011 (Haverhill's firefighters union) and the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts (the state fire union)," Fiorentini said.

Fire Capt. Paul Weinburgh, president of the Haverhill firefighters union, agreed the money is great news, but said he hopes Fiorentini and Borden will continue to look for and apply for other federal and state fire grants.

"We're still down a lot of men and we're still using tons of overtime," Weinburgh said.

Copyright 2009