JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department has filled 12 new positions, News4Jax confirmed Tuesday.
Jacksonville Fire Chief Martin Senterfitt said those positions were all filled within the past two weeks. The people taking over those positions are all receiving promotions to chief, and with that new job title comes a pay raise.
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Senterfitt told News4Jax the city will be paying an extra $350,000 to $450,000 for those raises. But Senterfitt said the plan will be cost-neutral because the city will end up paying less for insurance.
Council member John Crescimbeni said that when he heard JFRD was opening up 12 positions, he questioned why this was the first time the city was hearing about the need.
"It comes as quite a surprise that this wasn't a priority six months ago but all of a sudden it's being rolled out in the spring of 2015," said Crescimbeni.
Of the 12 new positions, nine have gone unfilled for some time. They are all safety officers, who respond to fire scenes and make sure safety protocol is being followed. The three other positions are with the rescue department, and Senterfitt said they are being added to payroll because the department is busy.
"During the budget process last summer and early fall the priorities of the fire department were maintaining their personnel, not closing stations, and acquiring new capital assets like fire trucks and ladder trucks equipment for firefighter safety," said Crescimbeni.
Senterfitt said the new positions were not made available in exchange for the Jacksonville Association of Firefighters' endorsement of Mayor Alvin Brown.
President of the Jacksonville Association of Firefighters, Randy Wyse said you cannot put a value on positions that will help the city save firefighter lives.
"Its just going to make the firefighters job a lot safer. So its the fact that somebody is keeping eyes on them, making sure they're doing stuff safely and its going to help with workers comp cost, limited duty costs," said Wyse.
The money is coming out of JFRD's budget but Wyse also said that the $350 thousand will pay for itself.
"If someone wants to argue costs, I think I'd be more than happy to put up all the injuries that we've had and maybe some injuries that could happen that they're going to avoid and also the workers comp cost. So I think there's minimal cost for the great gain," said Wyse.