The Lansing Fire Department is facing dangerously low staffing levels, Fire Chief Brian Sturdivant told City Council on Monday.
He said during a presentation on the city’s proposed budget that the number of firefighters in the city has declined even as the number of calls the department responds to has continued to increase.
“I’ve shared my concerns with the trajectory because we have reduced our resources, but the call volume continues to explode,” Sturdivant said.
“This was identified early in my tenure that we need to get in front of this,” he added.
The budget proposal before the council proposes giving the fire department a very slight increase for personnel, about 1.2%. But Sturdivant says that’s not enough to address years of declining funding.
Third Ward Councilmember Adam Hussain said that since 2011, the city has gone from having 52 to 41 firefighters per day. During that time, the department has experienced a 60% increase in call volume.
“We are at a dangerously low staffing level right now,” Hussain said.
Hussain said there is no priority higher than public safety when crafting a city budget.
“Some people would say it’s frugal, I say it’s dangerous,” he said of the current staffing levels.
That also extends to equipment, Sturdivant said. While Lansing responds to about four times as many EMS calls as neighboring East Lansing, they do not have a proportionate number of ambulances.
Lansing currently has five ambulances, compared to East Lansing’s three. Sturdivant said they have two more ready to go live once they get approval from the state and finetune a deployment plan for the new Fire Station 2 that is currently under construction. But even with those additional vehicles, that still leaves them short of the 12 ambulances that Second Ward Councilmember Jeremy Garza identified as being proportionate with East Lansing.
Sturdivant said his department’s requests for additional staffing and resources are weighed against competing interests from other departments.
“We’ll continue to do the best we can to service the city with what we have and to really recognize those baby steps to restore the services that will meet the demands of the community,” Sturdivant said. “Because right now, it is a bit of a challenge.”
City Council will hold a public hearing on the budget proposal May 5. They have until May 19 to approve the budget.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.