Youngstown fire department overtime budget exceeded, stations close

Over the weekend, the Youngstown Fire Department began shutting down stations or trucks on a daily basis, according to Chief Finley.

"I don't like to shut down stations and I don't like to shut down trucks," said Chief Finley. "But I'm left with no other alternative," he said.

With the over time budget exceeded for the year and five months left to worry about, Chief Finley attributes the closures to too many call-offs.

Firefighters disagree however, and are pointing the finger at the city's administration. A statement sent over by the fire union reads:

"Local 312 agrees with the Fire Chief's statement that station closures are a significant safety concern. Although Chief Finley has repeatedly tried to blame our members for these closures, those accusations are not the truth. These closures are the direct result of the Administration's continued refusal to adequately fund and staff our Fire Department. Until the City decides that public safety is a priority, our residents and businesses will continue to suffer."

Chief Finley says the department is not short staffed and people just need to show up for work.

To break down the money issue, the OT budget in 2022 was $270 thousand. They exceeded that ending with $312 thousand for that year. This year's OT budget sits at $360 thousand, but just 7 months in, it's currently sitting at $358 thousand. By the end of July, the OT budget will reach $397 thousand dollars according to the city's Finance Director Kyle Miasek.

When a firefighter calls off, they get paid sick time and then the person filling in for them gets paid overtime, so two people are being paid for one job, chipping away at the yearly overtime budget.

All this affects the public more than anything because it's the taxpayers that are contributing to the overtime budget and on top of that, their safety is put in jeopardy.

If you have a truck that's shut down, that's one less truck that we have on the road and that one truck could be the first due truck to a major fire," said Chief Finley. "But because that truck is shut down, now anybody trapped in that house has got to wait until the second truck gets into that district," he said.

Chief Finley continues that more money in the budget wouldn't be a solution unless the money was unlimited.

"When does it end? Right now they could say let's give the chief $20,000 dollars more. OK then in a month they go through that. Where does it end," he said.

It's hard to tell when station closures will come to an end and there's no limit to how many can be closed at any given time.