Fire union chief: Morale at ‘all-time low’

Published 1:00 pm Monday, June 20, 2022

Morale in the Baker City Fire Department is at “an all-time low,” as it transitions from a dual-role department that responds to fires and ambulance calls to a firefighting only agency, the president of the local firefighters’ union chapter said on Thursday, June 16.

“We come to work and we realize we don’t have the support of the administration, and that is a very depressing place to be,” said Casey Johnson, who is a firefighter/paramedic.

Johnson said three of his co-workers have left the department for other jobs since early April.

Two others are mulling job offers, he said.

Johnson said the departing employees were motivated by the City Council’s decision to have the city stop operating ambulances Sept. 30.

Councilors notified Baker County about that plan on March 22.

They voted to do so after City Manager Jonathan Cannon told councilors he doesn’t think the city can afford to continue the ambulance service because the city isn’t collecting enough from billing to cover its costs.

Under Oregon law, the county, not the city, is responsible for providing ambulance service throughout the county.

Prompted by the City Council’s March 22 notice, county commissioners released a request for proposals for a new ambulance operator and received two responses from private companies — Metro West Ambulance of Hillsboro, and Victory EMS of Boise.

Commissioners voted unanimously on June 8 to hire Metro West to run ambulances in both the Baker ambulance service area, which includes Baker City and about two-thirds of the rest of the county, as well as the Huntington area.

(The county’s other ambulance service areas are in the Richland and Halfway/Oxbow areas.)

Baker City’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 cuts staffing in the fire department from 16.25 full-time equivalents to 10.5.

The City Council is scheduled to adopt that budget June 28.

But Johnson said that with three employees recently leaving, along with another firefighter/paramedic slot that has been vacant for several months, it appears the city might achieve the cuts through sheer attrition.

The recent defections have left the fire department unable to respond to multiple simultaneous calls.

The county declared a local emergency on May 24, a week after the Baker City Fire Department notified the county about the staffing shortages.

“When we receive fire call and medical call simultaneously, we will have to triage the calls as they come and determine the greatest threat to life and property,” Baker City Fire Chief Sean Lee wrote in an email to the county. “My hope is that this will give you an opportunity to find a provider for the interim that will be able to maintain the existing level of service.”

In response, the county contracted with a private company, American Medical Response, to have an ambulance temporarily available for calls in the Baker ambulance service area starting Friday, May 27, the beginning of Memorial Day weekend.

AMR operated an ambulance through June 10. The county paid the company $3,700 per day.

The county subsequently approved a short-term contract with Metro West, which will also provide one advanced life support ambulance for the Baker and Huntington ambulance service areas prior to the company fully replacing the Baker City Fire Department.

The county is paying Metro West $1,000 per day. The contract also states that Metro West will reimburse the county for $500 for each “paid transport,” to a maximum reimbursement of $7,000 per week.

Metro West is charging $1,500 for each transport, along with $21 per mile with a patient on board.

The contract runs through July 31.

Johnson said that although he understands the need for more ambulances given the fire department’s workforce, he points out that this is largely the product of the City Council’s decision to concur with Cannon’s contentions about the department’s financial situation.

He considers it an affront to his and his colleagues’ professionalism that the county’s contract with Metro West, in common with the contract with AMR, designates the contractor as the first call ambulance.

That means the Baker City Fire Department responds with an ambulance only when the contract ambulance is already on a call.

Johnson said it’s frustrating to listen to the emergency radio and hear a contract ambulance handling calls that he and his colleagues are accustomed to responding to.

“We care about our community,” he said. “We’re not alowed to do what we’re trained to do. We’re playing second fiddle. It’s painful.”

Johnson said he probably would violate the callout protocol if, for instance, he heard an emergency call for a person in cardiac arrest.

He said he doubts he could simply sit in the fire station knowing someone’s life was threatened.

That protocol, besides the clauses in the county’s contracts with its temporary ambulance providers designating them as the first call ambulance, is reiterated in a June 1 memo from Lee, the fire chief.

It reads: “Baker City Fire Departments will not self-dispatch to any emergency call of other emergency agencies. All emergency response agencies have mutual aid request abilities to request Baker City Fire responders.”

More resignations coming?

Although the city’s budget calls for the fire department to continue to respond to fire calls after the ambulance service ends, Johnson said he’s not certain that enough firefighters will stay with the city to meet even the reduced workforce level. The city might need to hire replacements for firefighters who leave even though their jobs aren’t on the layoff list, he said.

“There are guys whose jobs are safe who are having a long hard look at what they want to do with their lives,” Johnson said.

He’s one of those guys.

“I love this job — it’s my identity,” he said. “But I’ve been considering getting out of the fire service altogether.”

Johnson, who has worked for the fire department since December 2017, said the stress has been accumulating since the City Council sent its notice to the county March 22.

He’s lost sleep.

Johnson said he would strongly consider taking a job in a larger city with a single-role fire department, where firefighters respond to fires but don’t also operate ambulances.

But he said a job in Baker City, once the fire department ends ambulance service, is much less appealing because there are relatively few fires.

Ambulance runs account for about 85% of the department’s calls.

Johnson said a 24-hour shift last week was something of a preview of what he might expect once the city’s ambulances are parked for good.

He said there wasn’t a single ambulance or fire call during the shift. Metro West handled all the requests for an ambulance.

Johnson thinks the city, if it needs to hire firefighters to maintain the workforce budgeted for the coming fiscal year, might find that a tough task.

“What firefighter would want to move to a town where this is going on?” he said.

Jobs with the new ambulance provider?

As required by state law, Metro West’s proposal to the county states that the company “would also offer to hire any fire Paramedics or EMT’s that lose employment with Baker City.”

The law requires that a new ambulance provider give hiring perference to qualified employees from the previous provider for at least six months after the change.

Johnson calls that clause “laughable” and a “terrible consolation prize.”

He said he would never consider working for the company that replaced the fire department as ambulance provider — although Johnson said he knows a Metro West paramedic who is stationed in Baker City now, saying he is a “super nice guy.”

Johnson said that although he can’t speak for all fire department employees, “I don’t see anybody at our fire department entertaining that idea,” meaning taking a job with Metro West.