Staffing ‘very tight’ for Kaua‘i Fire Department

LIHU‘E — With 15 current vacancies, the Kaua‘i Fire Department is making it through with a short staff.

At the end of 2020, KFD had 10 planned retirements and one passing of a long-time firefighter. Recently, there have been four more retirements.

“Staffing is very tight right now,” KFD Chief Steve Goble said at October’s Fire Commission meeting. “We’ve got a good group of folks though that are carrying that burden.”

The department doesn’t anticipate anymore this year, Goble said earlier this month, and doesn’t foresee any planned retirements in the next year.

“I think we’re going to stabilize here,” he said.

Keeping up with minimum staffing at the county’s eight fire stations does come at a cost.

“It is driving our overtime costs up slightly, just because we need people to be filling those roles so we’re not short-staffed in any single one position, but, you know, when people do take some time off, we are having to call back on a call folks back online on occasion,” he said then.

The department has an overall $35.8 million budget this fiscal year, which started in July, with a payroll around $32 million. Regular overtime in fiscal year 2021, the department clocked $25,922 in the first quarter of that year. In the first quarter of this year, it’s about $71,038.

However, since there are so many vacancies, total payroll is down about 12%.

“And that’s due exclusively to the number of vacancies that we have,” Goble said. “Overall, we’re seeing that reduced cost because of the vacancy. So our overtime costs have ticked up about $10,000 a month over the first what we’ve seen over the first three months (this fiscal year).”

About a year ago, an intensive audit into the KFD’s overtime came out, the department has made staggering changes to reduce unintended costs.

Prior to the audit, some practices have been corrected, like transitioning to on-duty training, placing limits on extra-duty assignments and excluding higher-ranking personnel from community-risk-reduction events. KFD has also instituted procedures for leave requests that monitor sick leave and vacation.

“We have taken those recommendations and had implemented many of the corrections to our practices even before that audit had come out,” Goble said. “Things like shifting our focus to on-duty training have been big for us.”

To keep things in check, the department has a rolling reserve staffing to step in.

Goble also pointed to changes in fire safety presentations and community-risk-reduction program policies for the reduction in overtime.

Too, because of the pandemic, both larger and off-island trainings were restricted. But, Goble said the department is faring well.

“As far as the pandemic goes (we’ve been doing) pretty well,” Goble said earlier this month. “We’ve had some good policies and protocols and all those things kind of put into place early that has really helped with our response to the pandemic.”

A new recruit class started on Nov. 1, with eight people, and it will take them about six months to get through training.

“There are a lot of disciplines that we have to pack into our, our, our personnel in order to make them effective in you know, against all of the hazards that are presented here on island,” Goble said.