L.A. Fire Commissioners Refute Chief's Realignment Plan

by City News Service

Los Angeles Fire Commissioners tossed back the fire chief's report on his firefighter reassignment plan Tuesday, criticizing it as too vague.

The panel felt Fire Chief Brian Cummings failed to give a good defense for his plan to take firefighters working on fire trucks and reassign them to 11 additional ambulances, according to Battalion Chief Armando Hogan, the department's spokesman.

The board instructed Cummings to come back on June 4 with a "more robust, informational report" with data on the plans' effectiveness, he said.

Cummings' report only detailed how the plan was carried out, Hogan said. The commissioners first approved the redeployment in April.

Members of the firefighters' union and a chief's association at that time condemned the plan as unsafe, saying the chief had not done his homework before implementing it.

Cummings argued the addition of 11 ambulances would better match the 85 percent of calls that dominate fire service demand. He added if the city approved more funding for the fire department, there would be no more need to take staff off of fire trucks to join the ambulance crews.

A supportive Fire Commission President Genethia Hudley-Hayes at the time urged the approval of the plan, but said she wanted to see results.

The plan went into effect on May 5, but soon after the City Council stepped in with $1.56 million in "rainy day" budget stabilization funds to keep the fire trucks fully staffed.

The money pays for firefighter overtime hours and is expected to run out on June 30, at which point 22 light force fire trucks would each lose one member of their crew.