Good evening. At a June 24 committee session of the Fort Wayne Common Council, Fort Wayne Fire Department Chief Eric Leggy told the council the department is “understaffed” but said “the city is not in danger” and that the department is not “operationally compromised.”

In a preview of an item the department will bring to the full council on July 8, Chief Leggy said he or a colleague will ask the council to suspend the normal rules so a construction management contract for the new Fire Station 5 in Wayndale can be approved quickly. Leggy said the request is aimed at keeping the project on a schedule “to get this building under roof before winter” and to avoid cost increases for winter work. He told council the delay was caused by Senate Bill 1 and follow-up budget review and that “every day right now counts.”

The nut of Leggy’s staffing update was procedural and numerical. He said the department currently has 352 sworn firefighters and that a class due to graduate in July would add 21 people, bringing staffing to about 373 if all graduate. He also said he expects roughly 12 retirements before the end of the year, which would reduce staffing to the low 360s. The mayor’s stated staffing goal, he said, is roughly 370–375 firefighters.

Leggy explained how the department handles shortfalls under the collective bargaining agreement and state law. “By contract … I have to have 96 firefighters at the beginning of each and every day, so that’s 0700 hours,” he said. When the number on duty falls below that level, the department offers voluntary overtime; he said mandatory overtime was suspended years ago after a legal challenge and that current overtime is voluntary. If positions go unfilled after overtime is offered, the chief said the department may be forced to take an apparatus out of service rather than staff it with fewer than four firefighters for more than 10 hours.

The chief described a long-standing coverage strategy called “move ups,” in which units from two‑apparatus houses temporarily cover territory when neighboring rigs are out for maintenance or staffing; he said the practice “makes sure that that territory is covered with a fire apparatus.” Leggy said he would prefer every rig to have four firefighters but that, if 3‑person rigs must be used, he prefers limiting that to no more than five rigs at a time to avoid leaving territory unprotected.

On recruitment and training, Leggy said the city currently has 95 names on the Merit Commission eligibility list and that about 15 candidates hold an EMT‑Basic certification. He told council that if those 15 are hired and seated in an academy class, the department could eliminate the EMT‑Basic segment from the academy for those recruits — “cutting out 12 weeks” from training for those hires — and accelerate their placement into service. He said a third‑party academy class length for a full academy is 22 weeks.

Leggy declined to say the department is underfunded in absolute terms, but he told the council “we can always use more money” and outlined near‑term equipment needs he will ask the council to approve in coming meetings, including a fire apparatus he said he will propose at a cost of $2,500,000.

Council members followed with questions on coverage, the safety tradeoffs of three‑person crews, and morale. Councilwoman Chambers pressed the chief about firefighter safety with three‑person rigs; Leggy said life safety is the top priority and that the department expects multiple rigs to arrive at structure fires so that an initial three‑person first‑in engine will be backed up “in under 8 minutes” by additional apparatus. Several council members asked for a future, more detailed presentation on recruitment strategies and morale when Leggy returns to present the Station 5 construction‑manager request.

No formal action on the Station 5 contract or any staffing policy changes was taken at the committee session; Leggy’s appearance was a preview and the suspension‑of‑rules request will be presented to council at its July 8 meeting.

Looking ahead, the chief provided dates for graduations the council requested: he listed the Fire Department graduation for July 24 and the Police Department graduation for July 17.