For the second time in less than a year, Peoria needs a new fire chief.
Current chief Jim Bachman announced last week he will retire in March after taking over from Tony Ardis last May. Ardis served in the role for 16 months following his November 2019 promotion.
Bachman’s departure continues a run of high turnover atop the department. Since Kent Tomblin left in 2016, four men have served as chief – none of them for longer than two years.
In a conversation with WCBU reporter Joe Deacon, City Manager Patrick Urich discusses his intent to fill the vacancy with someone who plans on an extended stay.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What steps need to be taken to get someone into the position for a longer tenure?
Patrick Urich: That's exactly what I'm looking for, is someone to come in for the long haul, somebody that's going to provide some stability to the department. So after Chief Bachman announced his retirement – and I wish the chief nothing but the best in retirement; he's been great to work with, he's been a great leader – what it really boils down to, is we need somebody that's going to be at the helm for a while to provide some continuity. We're applying for a SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant to put some additional resources back into the department. Council has agreed to allow us to kind of do that (cover staffing shortages) on overtime right now, for the foreseeable future until we hear word about the SAFER grant. But I think we need some stability. If we are lucky with the SAFER grant that'll provide some staffing stability for us over the next couple of years, and I'm really hopeful that that we're going to find somebody.
So we're going to do a national search; that's not going to preclude any local candidate, any internal candidate from applying. But that's something that I feel that at this point in time, we need to go out; we had great success with (hiring Police) Chief (Eric) Echevarria, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to do the same thing on the fire side.
It seems that many of the recent fire chiefs have been internal candidates. Is that a possible explanation behind the frequent turnover? Obviously, the position is always opened up to a national search. But do you think it's time for an outside candidate to get that stability you're seeking?
Urich: I really don't know. What I would say right now is I would encourage any candidate from inside the fire department to put their name in if they're interested in becoming the chief and we'll see how everybody stacks up. I think at this point in time, I just feel that it's important that we cast as wide a net as we can for the department.
Why do you think that position has seen as much turnover as it has?
Urich: It's been a tough couple of years. I mean, over the last 10 years, the city has reduced the headcount of the organization by over 150 positions, right? So we've seen some significant reductions in the city's workforce; fire was really the last department to feel that, and that was over the last few years. I think that that adds a layer of stress to the position, and I think that that has caused some of that turnover. I think that, as we deal with that kind of change, hopefully now that as we're at a point where we're kind of coming out of that trough and we're looking at trying to add some resources, hopefully we can find some stability as well.
How does this work in regard to the fire pensions with these retiring chiefs? That almost seems like a situation where people are getting promoted and getting a higher salary, and then leaving. With the fire pension obligations already problematic, does this make matters worse?
Urich: I mean, that fire pension isn't an issue because of the people leaving. I mean, they're availing themselves of that as the law lays out; I don't see that as an issue. What I see though, for us, is: how are we going to pay for it over the long term? That's the challenge for us, over the long term. We can't change the benefit structure; that's, the general assembly can do that, and the state Supreme Court said, “You can't change the benefit structure.”
So all we can do is hope to kind of spread those (pension) payments out over time to ease the burden on the taxpayer. And that's where we're concerned about it is, how do we pay for everything – because every dollar that we put every year into additional pension contributions is a dollar less that we have to pay for current services. That's been the rub, and that's been one of the biggest issues over the last 10 years that we've had to deal with.
Apart from someone who, as you said earlier, is going to be here for the long haul, what are the qualities and characteristics you want to see in the next fire chief?
Urich: Obviously, they need to be a great communicator. They need to have good labor relations skills. They need to be able to articulate a vision for service delivery that reflects the 21st century. Sometimes in the fire service, there's not that embracing of new ways of doing things, and it's something that we've got to look at. Communication is vital: somebody that's going to instill confidence in the men and women of the fire department.
That they understand complex organizations like ours: We have a lot of equipment, a lot of staff, and a lot of stations, and a lot of service that we provide to the community. We're responding to 50-60 calls a day, every day, in terms of responding to issues and emergencies in our community, and that's complex. You’ve got to be able to work well with AMT (Advanced Medical Transport) and with the hospital system, with the project medical director, as well as the volunteer fire departments in the community. So it's no small task.
I'm hopeful that we'll find a good candidate, because this is a great community. It's a great place to live, and you've got a great department. I mean, when the union is called “Local 50,” you know that our fire department has been around for a long time.
Is there anything the city could or should do to possibly make the position more attractive to candidates who want to stick around for years?
Urich: Well, like I said, now that we're coming out of it kind of this fiscal trough that we've been in, and if we're able to be successful with the SAFER grant, we'll have that stability of the staffing levels for the department. But I think that one of the things that we have to continue to do is to continue to challenge ourselves to look at how we can deliver services better. How can we push the organization to think about new ways of delivering service?
I think that those are opportunities for the new chief to look at that and say, “OK, maybe there are ways that we can work with AMT differently. Maybe there's ways that we can work on recruitment differently. Maybe there's ways that we can work on service delivery differently.” All of that, I think, comes in and will be challenges for the next chief. Like I said, I'm still high on Peoria and high on our ability to find a great candidate that will fill that role.
You've mentioned the SAFER grant a couple times, could you explain what that is and what it could do for the city?
Urich: Yeah, so the federal government has a grant called SAFER. It’s funded through FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency), and it's a firefighter staffing grant. Over the years, it's traditionally been funded about $300 million a year; this year, due to the American Rescue Plan funding, there's a half-a-billion dollars that's being set aside for additional firefighters in career departments. If you're looking to add additional firefighters, then communities can apply for this grant.
So we reduced an engine company during the (time) when we were dealing with COVID in 2020, and this gives us an opportunity now to say, “Let's apply to restore that machine permanently with 11 new positions.” That (funding) covers the cost of staffing that position 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So that's what we're going to apply for, is the salaries and benefits for a four-year period of time through the federal government to hopefully pay for that. I think we have a good story to tell because we made that adjustment because of COVID, and now we're going to try and restore that position, or those positions, because of now we've got this federal opportunity.
So how much money might Peoria receive, and when do you expect to hear a decision about if you'll get it?
Urich: Well, we're still working on what the total ask is going to be. It's going to be a function of the salaries and the benefits over a three-year period, and then it kind of steps down over that time. We would apply by early February, and hopefully we'll hear by late July (or) early August. It'll take some time for FEMA to kind of go through all the grant applications and make their recommendations.
Allow me one more timeline question: what is the timeframe for hiring the next fire chief?
Urich: We've worked with a local, or local (as in) state headhunting firm that does public sector recruitments. They're called GovHR USA, and we're going to use them again. They were very helpful for us with our finance director position, Kyle Cratty, when he came on board; Chief Echevarria from the police department; our emergency communications manager, Brian Hitchcock; as well as (assistant city manager) Kimberly Richardson, who's coming over – so a number of department head-level positions they helped us with this past year.
I'm hopeful that we'll be able to start that process in earnest here in the next month and get it up and running and get it going, and hopefully in the next 90 days we're able to say, “hey, we've got a new chief.”
