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Fire chief flags staffing strain and EMS changes as LFD unveils FY26 budget
Summary
Lansing Fire Department presented a FY26 budget with modest personnel increases and larger IT and operating cost growth, and emphasized staffing shortages, a pending state approval to deploy basic life support ambulances, and a recently accepted SAFER grant.
Chief Brian Sturdivant told the Committee of the Whole on April 21 that the Lansing Fire Department’s proposed FY26 budget includes modest personnel increases alongside larger operating and information-technology allocations, and that operational pressures from high emergency medical services (EMS) demand require new approaches.
“We had a 3.2% increase over last year with personnel, 12.4% increase with our operating budget, [and] 29.4% increase with our IT budget,” Sturdivant said, summarizing line-item changes in the proposed budget. He said total operating costs increased about 10.2% and total expenditures about 4.2% year over year.
The chief told council members that about 80% of the department’s call volume is EMS-related and that roughly 40–50% of those EMS calls are basic-life-support level. “We are eagerly anticipating” a state…
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