Metro’s budget hearings ramped up Wednesday, with about a dozen departments outlining proposals to Mayor Megan Barry and her top advisors. Public safety agencies presented some of the large monetary requests.
The Nashville Fire Department made new budget requests of $7.1 million, including for more ambulances, firefighters and staffing for the fire department’s SUVs, which quickly race to emergencies.
In all,
Fire Chief Rick White asked for 47 new employees. He said his department has been getting along with about 60 vacancies and hasn’t had a new crop of certified firefighters in three years.
“This is a lot of people to request, but we have justification for it,” he told the mayor.
Some of the hires would be paramedics to staff two new ambulances, as medical calls — not fires — now account for 70 percent of emergencies. The department handled about 96,000 calls.
White also wants to rely more on the fleet of fire SUVs, which arrive quicker than firetrucks and cut down on maintenance, according to an internal study.
“We can prove that we’ve reduced wear and tear on those engines and truck companies assigned to them by 50 percent,” he said.
More staffing of the SUVs, known as “FAST” trucks, would also help the department stick with a “two in, two out” rule, in which no individual firefighter can enter a life-threatening situation alone.
“I’m very concerned about our inability in certain circumstances to provide that 2 in,” the chief said.
He has also been waiting to get more arson detectives. There are about 300 suspicious fires each year handled by four investigators. They confirmed 60 arson cases and two methamphetamine labs last year.
White also says the department feels the city has a growing number of requests for home and business fire inspections — which they can’t get to fast enough.
After Jail Dispute, Sheriff Seeks $20M For New Building
Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall
renewed his effort to move more of his operations to South Nashville by asking the city for $20 million to build a new office there.
That follows
a dust-up last year over Hall’s attempt to relocate the downtown jail to Harding Place, where he has several facilities. The council blocked that move, and instead funded renovations where the jail stands.
Hall says there will still be a ripple effect. He described a chain reaction that will follow the renovation. He said it will make another facility’s jail beds obsolete, for example, so he would then shift staff away from there (but not to downtown, where they wouldn’t be relevant).
“At the conclusion of that project, there are some 200 of our employees who will not have a permanent home,” he said.
Eventually, Hall wants his staff of more than 800 to be split about evenly between downtown and South Nashville.
The total number of jail beds will be reduced, he said, and better used.
911 Director Seeks New Call Center
The mayor also heard the early makings of a push for the city to invest big to handle some 1.7 million emergency phone calls — up dramatically from 1 million calls two years ago.
Emergency Communications Center
Director Michele Donegan said that call volume, in the aging building near 12South, makes for tense moments. That’s because the call takers and rescue dispatchers work on different floors. And, sometimes, the computers that connect them don’t work.
“When that happens, we are literally running — old-school — our papers from the top, the call, down to the dispatchers, going up and down steps doing that,” she said.
“And that takes time,” Barry said.
“Absolutely,” Donegan said.
Chief Operating Officer Rich Riebeling estimated a call center could cost $50 million.
While full city funding is not likely this year, he said finance staff should start planning for such a project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AiuQoqSIg0
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