The Fire Department will have to go an extra two months understaffed after the city abruptly - and without offering an explicit explanation - took the unusual step of scrapping a new list of screened and tested recruits. The entire process now has to be repeated.
The delay in holding a training academy means the department, which is short three firefighters and coping with long-term illnesses and injuries, risks running up costs, according to Chief Oscar Elmasian. In addition, the city had originally planned to send its recruits to a state-run academy, which are designed to make it easier and less costly for municipal fire departments, Elmasian said. But the delay means the city will miss that state academy beginning in March and will have to hold its own, as it has done in the past.
"Anytime you delay an academy ...; the more overtime it will cost you," he said.