Acting Fire Chief Proposes Assistant Chief Position and Expanded Inspections; Councilors Raise Cost Concerns

Acting Fire Chief Patrick Delaney urged the City Council to add an assistant fire chief to the Lawrence Fire Department budget to strengthen inspection capacity and provide functional supervision across five divisions, while councilors questioned whether an additional management post is the best use of limited funds.

Delaney described new and growing workload requirements in the fire prevention bureau, including a December 2022 mandate for “periodic inspections” of non‑one‑ and two‑family buildings—about 5,000 structures that must be risk‑rated and inspected. “Periodic inspections allows us to do that, and it truly sees what we have. It's kinda like taking a snapshot of what we have in the city,” Delaney said, citing the need to close permits, perform wrap‑around reviews of projects and reach vulnerable populations.

The chief said fire prevention currently has a small team and that the National Fire Protection Association recommends roughly 10% of department staffing be assigned to prevention work. He said the new position would provide “stability to the office” and allow longer‑tenured supervisory leadership in prevention rather than repeated rotations of lieutenants who prefer suppression assignments.

Councilors asked for specifics and alternatives. Several members — including Council President and Councilors Marmol and Luzon — questioned whether raising a long‑standing administrative captain or reassigning deputies could meet the need without adding a new salaried position. Councilor Luzon suggested giving extra responsibility plus a stipend to a current lieutenant or captain as a less costly first step.

Chief Delaney said overtime is a related concern and that hiring to NFPA staffing levels would be the most reliable way to reduce overtime costs, but that additional hires are expensive. He reported overtime in recent years has been large enough to influence budgeting and compared Lawrence to neighboring communities where overtime budgets also run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. “I have a lot of ideas how to cut down that overtime a little bit, but it's difficult to control the emergencies,” Delaney said.

The chief described other budget details, noting the proposed total fire department budget of about $15,602,200 is roughly level with last year and that many line‑item changes reflect collective bargaining step increases, benefit timing and internal reallocations of purchase‑of‑service lines. He said one new full‑time position proposed in administration is the assistant chief; other line‑item reductions in some categories reflect moves of funds to suppression purchases of services and energy costs.

Delaney outlined operational reasons for the assistant chief post: coordinating periodic inspections; community risk reduction activities that rely on enforcement, engineering, education, emergency response and economic incentives; and providing functional supervision when large emergencies—such as the Columbia Gas incident—create high volumes of permitting, investigation and meeting demands. He said some preparatory tasks remain: an ordinance to create the position, a job description and council confirmation would be required if the role is approved in the budget process.

Councilors pressed on numbers, recalling that a similar assistant chief line appeared in prior budgets and asking why the current proposal lists a higher salary—Delaney and councilors agreed to review the budget document history and reconcile whether the item was previously authorized, cut, or shown with a different amount. Several councilors said that, given fiscal constraints, adding a senior manager now is not the right time and urged using existing captains or deputies while accelerating firefighter recruitment to reduce overtime.

Delaney said he is actively hiring and expects new recruits to reduce overtime pressure over time, but he asked for the council’s consideration of the prevention leadership role to stabilize that office and enable sustained inspections and permit closings. Councilors did not take a final vote during the hearing and asked the chief to return with further details.