March 30, 2023 Lake Country fire officials hope residents in Delafield will approve a measure to increase firefighters.
Source Firehouse.com News
Lake Country Fire & Rescue are hoping resident give them the nod to hire additional staffing which they say is desperately needed.
When residents in the Town of Delafield and City of Delafield go to the polls next week, they’ll see referendums on their ballots, according to Fox6.
They will decide to approve or reject a tax increase or fire fee. The choice depends on where they live.
“When we don’t have any part-time and paid-on-call people around that day or able to work, it forces us to close fire stations,” said Lake Country Fire & Rescue Chief Matthew Fennig adding that between July and December 2022, the city fire station was closed 50% of the time.
That resulted in an increased response time.
The chief said the department needs to hire full-time firefighters. He gets few people who want part-time work.
“If this moves forward, like we hope it will, it will ultimately fund the first two years of our staffing plan. It would be an additional 13 head count. I think there’s some hope we’ll hire these individuals next year and this year, and things will settle down, and there’ll be a change in the job market.”