Full-time firefighters are on staff for the first time in the Morton Fire Department’s almost 150 year history.
The change comes more than a year after the town’s village board approved the hiring of full-time employees to supplement the traditionally volunteer force. Early last year, the department had around 35 volunteers.
The new six person full-time staff, five of which were sworn in Tuesday, will operate on a 24-7 schedule.
Mayor Jeff Kaufman says the around-the-clock model followed the recommendations of their Fire Chief, trustees and police and fire commissioners. He says continued growth in the village makes it a necessity.
“It’s time now when you got Caterpillar’s worldwide distribution center here and Precision Planting, you’re getting very large facilities. All of our schools, we just felt like it’s time,” said Kaufman. “It’s very hard for employees to get off work now, anytime of day, for our volunteers. Our volunteers have done a superb job.”
The firefighters represent an expected $1,050,000 annual expenditure for the village. However, Kaufman says the village has been saving and budgeting for upgrades to first responder services. In fact, there’s more coming this year.
“We’re also going to put on two more police officers, a police dog and a police van for that dog,” Kaufman said. “So you’re probably looking at an expenditure of close to $1.5 million. We have that built into the current budget for the first year. So we’ve been saving our money for that. It’s a big expenditure, but it’s time.”
There’s also planned construction for a new additional fire station on Queenwood Road, due to the downtown fire station’s bay doors being too small to handle new equipment. Kaufman expects construction to start on Queenwood in 2026.
Kaufman says all these changes reflect public desires.
“The public supports it. They want response time, and it’s just something a growing community has to have,” he said.
There have been similar considerations in other Central Illinois communities with fully volunteer fire departments. Late last year, Peoria Heights reversed a plan to hire full-time firefighters after months of discussion.
