Firefighters union presses council for more hires after rise in response times and attrition

The president of the Prince George's County Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics Association urged the County Council on April 28 to restore or increase firefighter staffing in the FY26 budget to lower response times and reduce mandatory overtime.

Grant Walker, president of the union, told the council that response standards and actual response times diverge locally: “In Prince George's County, it takes roughly 9 and a half minutes for you to get an ambulance or a fire truck. The response standard for a first on scene fire truck is 4 minutes with 4 firefighters.” He said call volume increased roughly 10% from 2019 to 2023 and that response times rose 16% over the same period.

Walker asked the council not to “penalize our firefighters in this budget” and to increase allocated strength so there are enough personnel available for emergency calls and to reduce the abusive reliance on mandatory overtime. He said the council previously approved funding for 50 new personnel in the budget year, but “10 months into this fiscal year, we have hired less than half of those personnel,” and that the department experienced an attrition of 83 personnel in 2024, “50 of those were resignations.”

The union leader framed staffing as both a public-safety and personnel-retention issue: long mandatory overtime harms morale and contributes to resignations, he said, and increased staffing would allow firefighters to complete shifts and “go home to their families.” The council did not act at the hearing; Walker’s comments were entered into the FY26 budget record for later deliberation.

Provenance: Grant Walker’s remarks on staffing and response times (transcript timecode ~00:54:25).