A new apprenticeship programat the Peoria Fire Department is off to a very hands-on start for it's participants.
The department chose three candidates through an application and interviewing process. Chief Shawn Sollberger said the total pool was 17 people, with a couple of withdrawals before the final selection. All the candidates are between 18 and 21 years old, with varying levels of previous knowledge and training.
“First and foremost, the most important thing is that they're interested in being firefighters,” Sollberger said. “And it seems very logical in a sense, but you just really never know who's going to be applying.”
The department apprenticeship is designated as lasting “up to three years,” Sollberger said. This allows for flexibility in bringing on new apprentices, or moving an apprentice on to the onboarding process of becoming a full-fledged firefighter.
“So even if let's say (one of the apprentices) is not ready to be onboarded yet, or he hasn't tested yet, or whatever the case may be,” Sollberger said. “Then we have three apprentices that are in that 18- to 24-month range. And then we're onboarding three new ones that can learn from apprentices that are already onboarded.”
With a flexible approach to moving apprentices through the process, Sollberger hopes the program will be sustainable long term and eligible for expansion to six apprentices in the next cohort.
“If you look at it from that fiscal lens we're able to train them to firefighter status, EMT status, paramedic status at a much cheaper rate and a slower rate,” he said. “So we feel like we're getting a really good quality product through that process, and then onboarding them when they're ready.”
Sollberger said the current apprentices already are training alongside upcoming recruit classes. He visited a training site where they learned techniques to rescue people trapped in wreckage after a car accident, or in a burning building during a house fire.
The apprenticeship program isn’t the only avenue for bringing more firefighters onto the force.
Sollberger said the department is currently at 165 employees, with 171 being the benchmark for “fully staffed.” He said spending too much time too far below the 171 benchmark could put the department at risk of losing funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The department is exploring a wide range of possible staffing solutions. There’s a recruit class preparing to graduate at the end of June, another recruit class slated to start in August and two recent transfers from departments in Bloomington and Decatur.
In general, Sollberger said he’s seeing fewer people take the test to become a firefighter, as well as higher turnover in fire department positions.
“In my generation, when you became a professional firefighter, you were a professional firefighter for 30 years,” he said. “And there just wasn't much fall off, there weren't many people moving on to a different city, or moving onto a different profession. But we have, over the course of the last probably 10 to 15 years, experienced more on that than we ever have.”
Sollberger said "outside of the box ideas" like the apprenticeship program and the lateral transfers from Bloomington and Decatur are valuable for the department right now and will be a key part of recruitment strategies moving forward.
The department is also moving forward with the implementation of a fee recovery program. Sollberger said the department hired a new position and began operating the program through the company Fire Recovery USA after the city council approved the measure earlier this year.
Fee recovery is a process where fire departments can recoup some of the cost of responding to emergency calls through provisions in insurance providers’ policies. Though, Sollberger stressed it is possible the Peoria Fire Department will never send a bill to a resident in some municipalities through this program.
“That's the reason why it was strung out for as long as it was, is that we wanted to preserve that," he said. "We feel like the taxpayers already pay their taxes. They shop here and that's what pays for our salaries and our benefits so we did not feel like we needed to double dip.”
Sollberger said the department is currently going through the process of reviewing 32 incidents that qualify for billing through the fee recovery program.
Finally, the first canine members of the Peoria Fire Department are almost fully certified. The department welcomed arson-sniffing dogs Molly and Rock last year. Both have participated in investigations with handlers Brad Pierson and Josh Harris.
“We're proud to say that Molly is fully certified and that means Josh is as well,” Sollberger said. “A lot of people, when they think of dogs, they think of K-9 units through the police and that's natural. These arson detection, flammable liquid detection type dogs, are relatively unique. The industry has it, but our area doesn't really have a whole lot of that. So we're proud of that.”
Pierson and Rock are expected to be fully certified this summer.
