The federal grant that allowed the city to hire 21 new firefighters two years ago was not renewed, say local officials, leaving them to figure out how to make up the lost funding going forward.
Dylan Zelazo, chief of staff to Mayor Donald Grebien, confirmed last Friday that the timeframe where the city was still eligible for the grant ended. He said officials "budgeted for the worst-case scenario" by paying for the firefighters through a local tax increase this year.
The city was seeking a $1.75 million Staffing for Adequate Fire & Emergency Response grant for this year and another $1.8 million next year to fund 15 firefighters. The original grant was for $2.4 million each of the past two years to pay for 21 new firefighters.
This year's budget was done "as if we were going to have to lay off 15 firefighters," said Zelazo.
The plan now is to sit with leadership of Local 1261 of the International Association of Fire Fighters "to see if we can get the structural changes we need to get without doing the layoffs" that were tentatively planned if the city didn't get the grant, said Zelazo.
Lt. Will Maher, president of Local 1261, said union leaders "have always been willing to sit down with the administration" to discuss contract changes, "even in some of the more heated times" between the two sides.