Marshfield fire department continues to see overtime, fatigue after added positions cut from 2024 budget

MARSHFIELD − A plan to hire three firefighter/paramedics to fill open positions at the understaffed Marshfield Fire and Rescue Department as part of the 2024 budget process has been put on hold due to an unplanned reduction in city revenue.

The city of Marshfield has left the three firefighter/paramedic roles unfilled since 2021 to help balance its budget. A little over $300,000 was allocated in early drafts of its 2024 budget to fill the three positions.

However, changes had to be made to the budget in November to account for a $340,000 decrease in Marshfield Utilities’ payment in lieu of taxes, also known as PILOT, to the city. PILOT fees are meant to make up for the utility's exemption from paying taxes on property or when purchasing supplies.

"When we first looked at this budget, things looked a little grim but ... the legislature came up with some additional state funding for us and, boy, we were sitting pretty, but we forgot something, and that was the revaluation," District 5 alderperson Ed Wagner said in a Dec. 1 Marshfield Broadcasting video.

A Dec. 6 letter to the Common Council from City Finance Director Jennifer Selenske attributed the difference to the 2023 city-wide revaluation of properties. The utility's PILOT is calculated "based on the value of each utility’s plant and material/supplies that are subject to local and school taxes multiplied by the assessment ratio for the municipality."

The assessment ratio was impacted by a $5.3 million reduction in the amount the Marshfield School District collects in taxes due to the expiration of previous referendum levy and a rejected referendum in spring 2023.

Selenske recommended a $340,000 reduction in expenses for the city’s 2024 budget, and the Common Council approved budget amendments late in November that reduced expenses in the budget by $424,000. Those changes include delaying the hiring of one firefighter/paramedic until April 1 and a police officer until May 1. Leaving two firefighter/paramedic positions unfilled again for the full year accounted for $204,000 in expense reductions. Seven other minor changes, accounting for $33,000 or less, were also included.

"The motion that I put on the table … let’s fill one position, try to address some of the overtime that the fire department is experiencing and when the dust settles on medical services provided in Marshfield then we’ll have a clearer vision of what we might need," District 6 alderperson Russ Stauber said in the Dec. 1 video. "That doesn’t mean we can’t fill the other two positions, it just means that there’s no set date or time when that would occur."

Although leaving the two firefighter/paramedic positions unfilled does have an initial cost savings, Interim Fire Chief Jody Clements said it also presents a number of issues for the department. Unfilled roles lead to overtime for current employees, which totaled about 3,081 hours or $123,214 in pay for firefighters/paramedics in 2023.

Marshfield Police Department had about 7,166 hours of overtime in 2023 or $185,644 in pay.

A failed public safety referendum in spring 2023 would have authorized a $1.1 million annual increase to the tax levy to fund emergency services in the city. If the referendum would have passed, it would have allowed for nine firefighter/paramedics, one police officer, one police department record specialist and one shared administrative assistant to be hired.

"The much larger issue is the staffing levels we have had over the last three years. ... We have seen a 26% spike in concurrent calls where we need to call staff in. This leads to firefighter fatigue," according to a fire department report to the Fire and Police Commission. "While we are sincerely appreciative of the one new firefighter in the second quarter of 2024, we need to strive to obtain the other two firefighters in 2024. When we originally went to referendum, we were asking for our original three staff and six additional firefighters. I believe those numbers were accurate and that we need to strive to move in that direction over the coming years."

In 2022, the Marshfield fire department fielded a record 4,074 calls and responded to 3,792 calls in 2023.

In July 2023, state leaders reached an agreement on the state’s shared revenue program, which redistributes state tax revenue to municipalities based on a formula. The change to the program routes a portion of state sales tax dollars to municipalities.

The city of Marshfield received just over $1,000,000 more from shared revenue for 2024 due to the change, raising the value of the program to the city from roughly $4.2 million to roughly $5.2 million, Marshfield City Administrator Steve Barg said in an October Common Council preview video.

Along with the change to the shared revenue program, a new set of requirements for municipalities’ public safety services were also enacted and referred to as "maintenance of effort" requirements. These benchmarks essentially require municipalities to offer the same level of emergency services year-to-year or else they are penalized 15% of their shared revenue payment. For Marshfield, this penalty would be about $810,000.

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Erik Pfantz covers local government and education in central Wisconsin for USA-TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin and values his background as a rural Wisconsinite. Reach him at epfantz@gannett.com or connect with him on Twitter @ErikPfantz.

This article originally appeared on Marshfield News-Herald: Marshfield fire department sees overtime, fatigue after positions cut