Councilman Presents Plan to Save 'At Least a Half-Million' in Fire Department

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Councilman Keith Hartzell continued his push to save Ocean City taxpayers money by trimming the future budget for Fire Department salaries.

Hartzell presented a detailed new staffing model (see attached PDFs) to the Council and suggested the plan, over time, could save Ocean City as much as $439,442 annually.

The basic premise of the new model is to replace a small number of retiring firefighters with lower-paid emergency medical technicians (EMTs), who would earn $15 per hour, or approximately $31,200 annually. The new hires would replace firefighter/EMTs used to staff ambulances for the department.

The average annual salary in the current department is more than $100,000.

Hartzell said the new model would be accomplished over time through retirements and require no layoffs. He said the idea started with information from Chief Joseph Foglio, who retired on Oct. 1.

"Our goal is to create a framework for discussion," Hartzell said. "We think this idea has a ton of merit. We think the cost savings down the road could be at least a half-million dollars."

Councilman Scott Ping said the city could use the savings to increase service through the hiring of additional part-time EMTs.

He said he was "just about 100 percent sure that this can work" with "nothing coming out of anybody's pocket."

But John Murphy, president of the local firefighters' union, said after the presentation that he wasn't ready to trust the work of "a butcher and a paper salesman" (Ping owns Boyar's Market and Hartzell is involved in the paper business).

"It's easy to come up with something without input from the Fire Department," Murphy said.

Murphy pointed out that the department continues to operate without a dedicated fire chief (Deputy Chief Charlie Bowman is doing double-duty as a platoon leader and acting chief) to advocate for the department in assessing the new staffing model. He also suggested that the potential savings of the EMT model may not be dramatic because new firefighters are working under contracts with only small annual salary increases.

He asked if it's worth a small potential savings to lose personnel that can do two jobs.

Hartzell suggested the next step in the process should be a workshop with input from the mayor's administration and the Fire Department.