Fire fighter training wage to be considered again Dec. 16

By Rosemary K. Otzman
Independent Editor
The Belleville City Council and four city fire fighters discussed training wages for the fire department for an hour and 20 minutes on Monday at a special council workshop session.
Then they decided to get a recommendation from City Manager Diane Kollmeyer to consider at the Dec. 16 regular council meeting.
Council members were asked to give their feedback on Monday’s meeting to Kollmeyer by Wednesday. Also, Kollmeyer and Fire Chief Brian Loranger were to meet to come up with a wage to propose to the council.
The previous Monday, the council raised the $5 per hour rate to minimum wage, $7.40.
Mayor Kerreen Conley said after all the discussion, the council members know what the fixed budget is and how much is for training and how much for operations.
She said a realistic rate for training has to be determined from the $52,000 budget.
Councilwoman Kim Tindall pointed out the new information furnished by the fire department shows that fire runs annually cost from $42,000 to $43,000.
She suggested that at the end of the fiscal year, in May or June, when the fire department runs out of money, it stops its training sessions.
Trustee Tom Fielder said the previous $5 per hour pay for training was not fair, but the $10 asked for by the fire chief is an arbitrary number. He asked Loranger if he would see better participation in training with a higher per-hour rate and Loranger said he didn’t know, but probably would.
Fielder said maybe some of the work on the fire trucks could be done by fire fighters and the money in the maintenance account shifted to fire fighter pay.
While the city is half way through its fiscal year, Chief Loranger said he would like to have the council look into having his budget raised from the present $52,000 to the $70,000 budget he used to have, which would help a lot.
The Belleville Fire Department is a paid-per-call department with 13 members. Present at Monday’s meeting, besides Chief Loranger, were fire fighters Brian Blackburn, Chris Zweng, and Kris Rix.