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Fire chief asks council to add 40-hour deputy chief post as calls surge
Summary
The fire chief told the council the department’s annual call volume rose from about 500–600 calls two decades ago to roughly 3,000 now and requested a full-time deputy chief to handle administrative work and long-term planning; the council placed the personnel request on the regular agenda for budget committee review.
Lincoln’s fire chief described a substantial rise in calls and said the department needs an administrative, 40-hour deputy chief to handle planning and non-emergency work.
The chief told the committee he began in February and has seen call volumes grow from “between 5 and 600 calls a year” two decades earlier to “over 3,000 calls a year” now, but the department’s staffing levels have not changed substantially. “There are things in the future that I’m going to be bringing to you. We have an aging fleet of trucks…we need to be looking at a second station on the West End in 5 to 10 years,” the chief said.
He said several long-tenured members will retire within the next four years and that current assistant chiefs spend most of their time operating emergency shifts rather than handling administrative tasks. After questions from aldermen about call types and comparative call rates, the council agreed to place the proposal on the regular agenda and noted the budget committee will need to discuss funding.
No formal hiring decision was made at the committee meeting; approval and budgetary funding remain subject to the full council and budget committee review.
