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Fire and police chiefs warn Fort Lauderdale’s growth is stretching emergency response
Summary
Fire Chief Steven Golan and Police Chief Schultz told the board that population density, ER backlogs and vertical development are creating response-time and staffing pressures; they outlined plans for new stations, staffing adjustments and prevention programs.
Fire and police leadership told Fort Lauderdale’s budget board that the city’s rapid growth and visitor-driven demand are stressing emergency-response capacity.
Fire Chief Steven Golan said the department faces personnel, facility and procurement lead‑time challenges, and he flagged hospital emergency‑department bottlenecks that lengthen ambulance turnaround times. "What keeps me up at night... it's keeping up with the demands of the city," Golan said, adding that new fire stations and multi-bay designs are planned to scale with growth.
Police Chief Schultz said the department has nearly finished its move into a new headquarters at 1300 West Broward Boulevard and is focusing on response planning for a more vertical city. He emphasized added demand from visitors during high-tourism periods and said the department is expanding partnerships to support violence-interruption and homelessness diversion programs. On houses-of-worship security, Schultz said the department is providing free security surveys and training to congregations who have requested support.
Both chiefs told board members they are monitoring overtime and vacancy rates and expect budget requests for additional fire-prevention staff and other roles tied to review workloads. Board members asked for clearer performance measures, including potential KPIs that link vertical development to response time and the number of re‑inspections generated by fire prevention activity.
The board did not take formal action on staffing requests at the meeting; chiefs were asked to return with cost estimates and proposed performance measures for inclusion in budget deliberations.
