AUBURN — Volunteer fire departments in northeast Indiana are struggling to find recruits.
But Auburn city officials have a plan they think might solve the problem. Kendallville Fire Chief Mike Riehm has been thinking of a possible solution, too.
The proposed City of Auburn budget for 2016 includes an additional $90,000 to hire seven new, part-time firefighters for the department. The Common Council approved the budget on first reading last week and will examine it again at its next meeting, Oct. 5.
“Every fire department struggles with volunteers,” Auburn Fire Chief Mike VanZile said. “Recruiting and retaining volunteers is a huge struggle. We’re all low on manpower.”
The proposed solution would see the seven new hires pick up two 12-hour shifts per week. With that system, the fire department would have six firefighters working during each shift. Right now, five firefighters work during a shift.
“We would have an extra firefighter 24/7” with the proposed system, VanZile said.
Volunteerism has been declining steadily statewide for the last five years or so, VanZile said. While most full-time firefighters stay with the department for 25-30 years, the national average that volunteers stay with fire departments is five to six years.
VanZile said fire departments are struggling for the same reasons other clubs and organizations aren’t getting participation from volunteers.
People are busy, and employers are becoming less likely to allow their workers to take time off for training, Yoder said.
Riehm said Noble County is facing the same issues. New firefighter recruits have to commit to several weeks of training to get up to speed with state requirements before they can make their first run, he said. But the training commitment doesn’t end there.
“Training is not just something you do and then stop. It’s ongoing,” Riehm said. “Our department trains every week.”
In addition to being on call for emergencies, volunteers also must commit one evening per week for training, he said. It’s been especially difficult for Noble County volunteer departments to recruit young people, he said.
Over the past few years, Riehm has held conversations with representatives at Kendallville’s Impact Institute. The school offers vocational programs to students from all four counties in northeast Indiana. It offers a criminal justice program to prepare students for careers in law enforcement, as well as a health occupation program that gives students training for nursing careers, Riehm said.
But currently, the institute doesn’t offer any such program for fire services.
“For (students) that are interested in that type of work, a vocational class is what we would like to see,” Riehm said.
Classes in the program would bring students up to speed with state-regulated training and procedures. By the time they completed the program and graduated high school, most students would be 18, which is the minimum age most volunteer departments can accept recruits, Riehm said.
“That would help all four counties with their departments,” Riehm said.
Similar programs have been implemented in other places in Indiana, Riehm said. In these areas, the classes keep interest in firefighting and emergency services going among youth, he said.
Kendallville’s fire department relies on a combination of 10 full-time firefighters and around 25 volunteers, Riehm said. If a situation arises that is too big to handle for just the Kendallville department, emergency workers can call on other departments to help out. Riehm said departments in the area rely on this mutual aid constantly.
“No one city can stand by themselves to take care of every incident,” Riehm said. “When those situations arise, we have situations and agreements in place where we help one another.”
Should the Auburn council approve the budget, VanZile said he would hope to start taking applications in October and have new people starting in January.
VanZile said he wanted to think outside the box to find a solution that would be financially feasible for the city. The new recruits would be paid between $10 and $13 per hour, Mayor Norm Yoder said. Since they would be working part-time, the city would not have to pay for insurance for them, he said.
Having extra workers also would help the department eliminate overtime wages it sometimes pays, he said. If a full-time firefighter were to retire or move on, the department would have potential replacements trained and ready.
In Auburn, VanZile said that while the fire department doesn’t have an ideal number of people working right now, the situation isn’t dangerous. But he doesn’t want to let it get to that point.
“We are trying to fix this so we don’t get into a dire situation,” he said.
“Public safety is our No. 1 responsibility,” Yoder said. “That’s what we do.”