By Peter N. Spencer
Staten Island Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The last time the City Council held a contentious hearing on Fire Department cuts, the budget was already approved and it was too late to stop the overnight closing of four companies, including Engine Co. 161 in South Beach.
With the stakes even higher this time — 12 more companies and dozens of ambulance shifts are now at stake — the Council held a hearing yesterday on the latest spending plan a full three months before they are set to vote on it.
Outside City Hall, firefighters and representatives of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, and sympathetic members of the public, declared that any city legislator, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, will be punished at the polls if the proposal becomes a reality.
“If you close firehouses, you lose the support of the UFA, you absolutely will lose the support of all UFA members and every family member of every UFA member that lives in the City of New York,” said UFA President Steve Cassidy.
Under Bloomberg’s fiscal year 2010 budget, which starts July 1, the FDNY could shutter a total of 16 engine companies and eliminate 30 Emergency Medical Service tours to help trim about $62 million from its budget. Among those 16 companies would be Engine 161 and three others that since November’s budget modification have been closed from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m.; the FDNY has yet to identify the other 12 companies.
The EMS service cuts could be even more severe and far-reaching: The city could be forced to slash an additional 100 ambulance tours on top of the 30 already proposed if the state sticks to its plan to withhold $60 million in federal Medicaid funding that was earmarked for such services.
The plan also calls for cutting 102 fire marshals, shutting down one of two remaining fire marshal bases and eliminating 48 civilian jobs.
An Alternative
And while New York City is expected to get billions in federal stimulus funds, none of that money is reserved for fire services.
As an alternative to the closings, Bloomberg proposed reducing manpower at 64 engine companies across the city from five to four firefighters, which would curb overtime. That move, however, would require reopening of the contract between the city and its firefighters.
“If they are going to ask us to renege on our contract, we’ll address that when that time comes,” Cassidy said. “But believe me, there is a lot of money in the Fire Department budget that can be slashed before they ever look at closing one firehouse.”
Under pressure by Council members and the public, the Fire Department has been staffing Engine 161 and the three other closed companies with surplus firefighters when they are available. But because the FDNY won’t be getting any recruits this year, the department surplus will likely run out within a few months.
Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), chairman of the Council Committee on Fire & Criminal Justice Services and a passionate opponent of the closings, called the makeshift arrangement a “Band-Aid on a public safety necessity.”
“This is not a way to assure fire protection, because fires don’t choose whether to take place on the evening the ladder company or engine is there,” Vacca said. “Public safety has to be reliable and consistent.”
Heated Exchange
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta endorsed the mayor’s alternate proposal to trim staffing, repeating on several occasions during his testimony that the cuts are dictated by the city’s dire economic situation. According to the mayor’s projections, the city faces a $4.1 billion deficit in the next fiscal year alone.
During one heated exchange, Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens), who is running for mayor, suggested that Scoppetta should have quit under protest rather than accept the budget cuts.
“I haven’t heard you say that. I keep hoping at the next hearing, you are not here because you’ve done that. There is a difference between being a good bureaucrat and being somebody who fulfills their responsibility,” Avella lectured the commissioner.
Scoppetta retorted by asking Avella why he hadn’t resigned rather than vote for a budget that closed six engine companies in 2003.
“But I’m in a different position,” Avella said. “I can’t resign because I represent a constituency.”
“Please,” Scoppetta said. “When you run into difficult times, when you are dealing with adversity, the response should not be, ‘I’m going to run away from this.’ The response should be, ‘Let’s do the best we can, let’s see if we can make these cuts if we have to.’”
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