Chief Don Adams

The four members of the Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue District will be told at their next meeting on July 22 by Chief Donald Adams that the department has filled the 34 positions that were left open following a layoff off nearly three dozen firefighters last August.

Money to pay the salaries for the firefighters/EMTs comes from a SAFER grant of $8.9 million that was awarded to the Lehigh Fire Dept. effective August 14.

Adams said nearly 300 people had applied for the 34 vacant positions and that those who had held jobs with the department are being hired back as required by the grant.

“My battalion chiefs conducted interviews last week to fill the remaining positions,” Adams said. “Then they make recommendations to me and I usually accept them and those people become members of our department.

“They are told and asked to sign a document that if they are hired and are laid off in two years, they understand the terms. The grant only lasts for two years and it was originally intended to add new firefighters to a department to help it grow. But with the difficult economic times, the grant was changed this year to include those who lost their jobs because of strained budgets,” he said.

Interviewing took place July 7 and 8 of last week. This came after background checks of the close to 300 applications. And the chief said the applicants were screened for those with experience in firefighting and emergency medical treatment (EMTs).

“There were some on the list from other fire departments in the county who lost their jobs and some of them will fit the requirements,” Adams said.

The top 30 screened applicants, not counting the firefighters who automatically get their jobs back, were to be interviewed by the group of fire officials.

“Those hired who were not with our department will go through two weeks of orientation they won’t be working on the fire equipment until that is over,” Adams said.

And they officially go on the payroll on Aug. 14 the effective date of the grant.

Adams said he doesn’t have plans yet for what he may or may not do in two years if the economy has not improved and the ad valorem taxes don’t bring in enough money to pay for the personnel and the opening of the newest station on Milwaukee Blvd.

Adams said the station has been open off and on when there are enough employees to staff the station.

“But with the grant, it will become a full-time working fire station again. And we need for it to be open in that area. We have a high school within sight of the station and lots of homes have been built in that area. Also not far from the station is the Mirror Lakes Elementary School and Mirror Lakes community, he said.

In June, the four-member board voted for a millage rate of 3 mills, the maximum it can call for without going to referendum, the chief said.

With the gloomy forecast by the Property Appraisal’s Office of more devaluation of property values in the county and especially in Lehigh, it could mean less revenue coming into the coffers of the fire department. Loss of ad valorem taxes can mean over a million dollars lost to the fire department.

Budget hearings are set to begin for the upcoming budget in August.

“We’re very pleased with the SAFER grant. The Milwaukee station will open full-time officially on Aug. 14, Adams said as he walked down a darkened hallway. Whenever the chief or staff members are at the station, they use less electricity in an effort to keep costs down.

“I’d say that even though we were forced to close the Milwaukee station, we opened it about 20 percent of the time when we had enough staffing to spread our personnel,” Adams said.

The meeting on July 21 will start at 4 p.m. and will be at the Veterans Park Community Center on Homestead Rd. That is when the commissioners will get the word officially that the department has filled the empty positions.

The chief says he is hoping that within two years, the recession will have leveled off and there won’t be a need to lay off personnel.

In November, there will be an election to fill three seats on the fire board. One is the empty seat vacated by Joel Guzman earlier this year when he resigned. The other two seats being vacated are those of Julie Barrett and Ralph Hemingway who did not sign up to run again. The two incumbents who are not facing reelection are Jeff Berndt, the president of the board, and David Adams, no relationship to the chief.

Adams also noted that if one of the employees hired leaves for some reason, they would go back to the list of people who were interviewed and offer the job to the next applicant rated high on the list.

With the new hiring completed, that brings the total firefighters online to 106 plus three battalion chiefs and 10 administrative workers. A few who were laid off in Administration are not being brought back because the SAFER grant specifies only firefighters be hired.