The 600-member Buffalo Fire Department has been operating without a commissioner or deputy commissioner since the beginning of May, part of a pattern of continuing turnover in the department’s top positions since Mayor Byron W. Brown took office in 2006.
The leadership void is “devastating,” said a source within the department. And city Comptroller Mark J.F. Schroeder says it means there is no one to manage the department's increasing overtime costs, which already have reached $11.3 million with a month to go in the fiscal year.
Brown is interviewing people to fill at least two deputy commissioner positions, city officials said, while the day-to-day operations of fighting fires and responding to emergency medical calls continue under the direction of five division chiefs.