Riverton council debates 3‑person vs. 4‑person engine staffing with UFA chiefs, weighing budget savings against reduced on‑scene personnel

Riverton’s elected officials held an extended work‑session discussion with Unified Fire Authority (UFA) chiefs and city staff about whether to change engine staffing from the current four firefighters per apparatus to three, a planning decision tied to the city’s five‑year budget forecasts.

City staff framed the discussion as a budgetary review: current projections show pressures on the fire‑service fund balance in later years of the five‑year plan, prompting elected officials to consider options. UFA representatives and chiefs described operational consequences if the city reduced staffing.

UFA officials explained the history and operational rationale for moving to four‑person engines. They traced the change to a series of staffing and system reorganizations dating to the early 2000s and the 2006 period when ambulance services were restructured. UFA said member jurisdictions are authorized by their interlocal agreement to set staffing levels; historically many stations converted to four‑person staffing as ambulances were consolidated and personnel reassigned.

Chiefs told the council that Riverton’s current configuration — two ambulances and multiple heavy apparatus distributed across three stations (Station 121, Station 124 and the older Station 120) — yields roughly “12 firefighters a day for the cost of 8” through regional specialty units (heavy rescue and HAZMAT) staged at Riverton stations. Moving both stations to three‑person engines would reduce daily staffing roughly 33 percent (a difference of about four firefighters per day for the city), officials said, and would likely require specialty rescue companies and some ambulances to be deployed from outside the city. That would increase out‑of‑service time in some circumstances because fewer personnel remain on heavy apparatus when a crew member must accompany a patient for transport.

UFA presented tradeoffs: a switch to three‑person engines cuts labor costs (the city was shown a multi‑hundred‑thousand‑dollar annual savings estimate in their briefing), but chiefs cautioned it also reduces immediate on‑scene manpower and shifts specialty resources’ staging. Council members asked for more granular station‑level call counts and ambulance deployment data; officials said 2024 call totals were roughly 2,100 across the city, distributed unevenly across stations (UFA gave station totals in the conversation). Several council members proposed a compromise: keep Station 121 staffed at four and consider changing Station 124 to three if station‑by‑station call volumes and ambulance coverage supported that move.

Council members also sought clarity about operational impacts, including the frequency specialty units leave the city and the effect of transports on engine in‑service time. UFA leaders said specialty units respond regionally and are sometimes dispatched from Riverton to incidents elsewhere in the UFA service area, and that those units are typically called about once a week for significant incidents. UFA emphasized that staffing decisions may be revisited year‑to‑year; the city could try a staffing model change for the 2025–26 fiscal year and revert if the council decides the change is not acceptable.

Several council members and public commenters, including career firefighters, urged caution about cutting on‑scene personnel given population growth and rising call volume. Others argued the city must balance rising personnel costs and consider phased or partial changes rather than systemwide cuts. Council members asked for additional information and data to inform a possible future direction, including station‑level call counts, ambulance surge behavior, and a clearer projection of how savings would appear in the city’s five‑year fund balance. Council did not take a formal vote in the work session; several council members asked staff and UFA to return with the requested data and, if necessary, a formal resolution to provide explicit direction ahead of the next budget cycle.