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Gadsden City’s new fire chief outlines staffing shortfalls, pay changes and training plans
Summary
In a "Meet the Staff" interview, Fire Chief Vance Brown described a department facing a roughly 10-person shortfall, recent pay increases and a shift to on‑shift paramedic training while Mayor Craig Ford said two long‑running lawsuits were settled.
Gadsden City’s new fire chief, Vance Brown, said the department faces an ongoing staffing shortage, has received recent pay and benefit increases and is moving paramedic training onto shift to address shortages, during a Meet the Staff interview with Mayor Craig Ford.
The discussion matters because staffing, overtime and training levels affect emergency response capacity across the city and neighboring jurisdictions that rely on Gadsden for mutual aid.
“The struggle has been…we're 10 guys down between guys leaving, attrition of guys retiring,” Fire Chief Vance Brown said, describing turnover that followed several recent retirements and departures to other departments. Brown, who said he has worked in the Gadsden Fire Department for 23 years, told Ford the department has responded by changing shift lineups and using mutual aid with Rainbow City, Glencoe and Attalla when stations close for staffing reasons.
Brown described the department’s operational…
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