NH firehouse closures rumor doused

By Carol Robidoux
The Union Leader

DERRY, N.H. — Sometimes, public forum is the place where rumors go to die. At least, that's what happened Tuesday night during the open comment portion of the town council meeting.

Resident John Burtis sat before council — and home viewers on cable access TV — and questioned rumors he'd heard that town Fire Chief George Klauber was threatening to shut down fire stations if he didn't get four new hires.

"I heard there was a chance we could close stations, or have brownouts, or rolling closures, or something to that effect," said Burtis. My concern, in these troubled economic times ... is that the addition of four firefighters, with a threat like that, strikes me as disconcerting as a taxpayer."

As with most comments floated during open forum, his words just kind of hung in the air. His assertion was not confirmed, denied or clarified — until two hours later, when Councilor Kevin Coyle finally asked Town Administrator Gary Stenhouse to elaborate just before the meeting adjourned.

"It was brought up tonight, about blackouts and closing certain fire stations. Can you let us know if that's true, and if so, what the plan is?" Coyle said.

Stenhouse responded by saying the council would get a staff report Friday on a plan he and Klauber had worked out to control overtime spending within the fire department. He said it had nothing to do with blackouts.

Meeting adjourned. Rumor, dismissed.

Yesterday, both Stenhouse and Klauber elaborated on the plan, meant to stem overtime spending, and what they figure likely led to the rumor in the first place.

"It really is two separate issues that somehow came together," said Stenhouse. "Such comments are often based, to some degree, on fact."

One issue is holding down overtime spending, which is tracking over budget. Vacancies left by illness, vacation or injury are being filled regularly to maintain a daily staff of 17 fire personnel.

Klauber, who checks his budget weekly, noticed that overtime spending was on track to exceed the allotted overtime budget of $696,000. To hold spending, staffing will be reduced to a minimum of 15 fire personnel daily as of Jan. 13. In other words, if two people call out sick, no one will be called in to replace them. If no one calls out sick, there will still be 17 employees working the shift.

"We will review the policy in February or March, and if it looks like we've brought spending under control, we'll make changes in the other direction," Stenhouse said.

Stenhouse said, in hard numbers, the fire department has spent 56 percent of its overtime budget — approximately $389,760 — halfway through the budget cycle.

"What the chief is doing is called good management. Would I rather have someone I work with come running in here in May saying we've spent $700,000 in overtime as of two days ago? This is what managers are supposed to do. It's good, proactive management," Stenhouse said.

Klauber said the department has been plagued with illness and injuries. The cost of hiring employees to fill in has been chewing up the overtime budget. Knowing that there's no wiggle room in the town's general fund, Klauber felt a temporary staff reduction would solve the problem with negligible disruption to the department's ability to function.

He added that if, by April, the staff reduction has not done enough to hold spending, it may require him to close a station for a 10- to 12-hour shift — something called a company closure.

"A station closure is a misnomer. We know a company closure can be effective. It's something Concord did last year successfully, closing its north end station over night," Klauber said.

As for the other half of the rumor — Klauber threatening to close departments unless he was allowed to hire four fire fighters — Klauber said that was likely a wobbly spin-off of a request he had made to the council a few meetings ago, to consider a SAFER Grant — Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response — through FEMA, which provides money to fire departments in need of personnel. The only requirement is that, once hired, they must be retained for an additional year at the expense of the town or city receiving the grant.

"In my report to the council requesting the SAFER Grant, I had said we lost four fire personnel, and that this grant would allow us to replace those four and, over time, would help us maintain all four stations open. But the council decided not to go for the grant. They didn't even call for a public hearing, so that was the end of that," Klauber said.

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