Richardson Fire Department reports staffing shortfalls, hiring surge and bond requests in annual briefing

Fire Chief Poovey presented the Richardson Fire Department’s 2025 annual report and framed it as both a status update and a “budget deep dive” ahead of the FY 2027–28 budget process. He told council the department is about 11 sworn positions and three civilian positions short, and described a recent recruitment drive that produced roughly 652 applicants, 330 test-takers, and 132 candidates advancing to interviews; the department expects to hire 18 people to start an academy in early July.

"We're 11 personnel down on the sworn side and then 3 personnel down on the civilian side," Chief Poovey said, and described plans to address the shortages through a multi-step hiring process and an academy. He also highlighted training totals—36,766 fire-rescue training hours and 10,024 hours of paramedic continuing education—and said EMS comprises roughly 75–78% of the department’s workload.

Poovey summarized emergency response volumes for 2025: about 5,170 fire responses, 10,890 EMS responses and roughly 25,670 unit responses overall. He told council the department saved an estimated $256 million in property value with a property-involved value of about $261,750,452 and an initial recorded loss near $4–5 million in preliminary insurance-reported figures.

The briefing reviewed specialty work: the prevention division performed about 2,761 annual inspections and issued roughly 545 permits; the department supported state deployments (including extended work in Kerrville) and worked with UTD’s campus emergency response team, which ran 463 calls. Chief Kaske described a serial-arson investigation that included an apartment fire on Prestonwood causing roughly $1.3 million in damage; the suspect is on house arrest with an ankle monitor after bond proceedings.

Poovey reviewed capital and staffing proposals tied to the fire master plan and the approaching bond cycle: a Station 6 remodel (about $2.1 million), an $8 million apparatus storage building behind Station 5, design and later construction funding requests for Station 7, and staged staffing and vehicle capital requests across FY27–FY31. He said apparatus lead times remain long—ambulances 14–19 months, engines/quints 47–50 months, trucks roughly 50 months—and noted truck 4 is on order and expected in June.

Councilmembers questioned staff on FIFA-event mutual-aid possibilities, the role and vacancy of a Fire Management Technician civilian position, the impact of population aging and growth on call volumes, and lithium-ion battery risks; fire leadership said the industry is still developing best practices on battery fires and decontamination, and that billing/data sources such as Digitech can provide age-and-call-type breakdowns for further analysis.

The chief asked staff to return with additional budget/plan detail as needed during the council’s budget development process.