Brigham City to split assistant chief/fire marshal role; council gives consent to post assistant chief position

Brigham City officials said the city will split a combined assistant fire chief/fire marshal position into two separate roles after the resignation of the department's incumbent. City administrators asked the council for consent to post the assistant chief position immediately; council members verbally agreed to allow the posting subject to later budget approval.

City Administrator Derek told the council the resignation of Mike Young, who served more than 26 years as the city's assistant fire chief and fire marshal, prompted the change. "We had to make a change in the mayor's budget," Derek said, explaining the mayor's proposed FY2026 budget splits the single position into two full-time roles: an assistant chief to manage operations and a fire marshal to manage prevention, plan review and inspections. Derek asked the council for permission to post the assistant chief job now so recruiting could begin.

Fire leadership explained the rationale: the fire marshal role focuses on prevention, code enforcement, plan review, inspections, fire investigations and public education, while an assistant chief is required to manage day-to-day operations and incident command. The chief said training a deputy fire marshal typically takes two to three years and that reaching full competence as a fire marshal can take five to 10 years, underscoring the department's need to recruit experienced candidates rather than rely on short-term internal training alone.

Staff said the department has posted the fire marshal position and completed interviews for that role and that they have a candidate under consideration. The immediate request to the council was permission to post the assistant chief position in accordance with city hiring policy, which requires a minimum 10-day posting. The chief and Derek said the change would not create a fiscal problem in the current fiscal year and that any final hires would be subject to council action on the mayor's budget.

Salary and recruitment questions: one council member said their phone "blew up" after the city posted the fire marshal job because the advertised salary appeared high compared with other jurisdictions. Derek and staff said the posted salaries are based on a compensation study that compares pay across roughly 28 Utah cities using TechNet data and that the posted fire marshal role pays less than the combined assistant-chief/marshal package held by the departing employee. Staff offered to share the comp study and to provide additional recruitment and salary data for the assistant chief posting.

Next steps: staff said they would post the assistant chief position for at least the city-policy minimum posting period and return to the council before making a hire. The mayor's proposed budget reflects the split into two positions; final authorization depends on council approval of the FY2026 budget.