POCATELLO — Members of the City Council aggressively questioned Fire Chief David Gates recently over a proposed increase in the Fire Department’s overtime funds for the next fiscal year.

Gates proposed at last week’s city budget hearing a total increase of $126,000 in overtime funds for the Pocatello Fire Department and the ambulance service it provides to Bannock County for 2017-18. The increase would put the combined overtime funds for the department and its ambulance service at about $500,000 for the next fiscal year.

In defense of the expenditure, Gates pointed out that since he joined the Fire Department in 1994 the number of calls the department has responded to has nearly tripled. During that time three full-time firefighter positions have been added to help handle the increase, bringing the department’s total to 65 firefighters.

Gates’ proposed overtime increase received criticism from some City Council members, including Steve Brown who said the Fire Department has now requested additional overtime funds for several consecutive years.

“This is the same conversation we’ve had for the seven years I’ve been on this council,” said Brown to Gates during the budget hearing. “I feel like we’re kicking the can down the road.”

Gates responded that in years prior the Fire Department asked for feedback from the council on what department services should be cut to compensate for the overtime increases. But Brown told Gates that the city hired him to make those decisions.

“We hired you to be the chief to figure that out,” Brown said. “We’re not in a good space together anymore and we haven’t been in a long time. You guys are a part of us; we’re a part of you. We live together, we work together, how are we going to solve this together? .... We hire managers to create solutions, and I just don’t feel like we’re getting solutions. We’re getting the same problem year after year after year.”

Councilman Michael Orr also scrutinized the Fire Department’s proposed overtime increase and at one point during the budget hearing asked Gates what was broken with his operational structure.

“Neither one of us have been successful in our jobs as I perceive it,” Orr told Gates. “We haven’t assisted you and you haven’t come back and reciprocated with us options that are fixable.”

The current overtime budget for the Fire Department, prior to the proposed increase, is $384,000, according to Gates.

Orr pointed out that in 2013-2014 the Fire Department received an additional $50,000 for overtime and in 2015-2016 it got an additional $100,000 for overtime.

Orr said that overtime makes up about 10 percent of all the wages paid to Fire Department employees under Gates’ 2017-2018 budget.

“I couldn’t keep my job in the private sector if 10 percent of my wages was overtime,” Orr told Gates.

During his budget presentation last week, Gates explained that 55 percent of the overtime funds in his proposed budget will ensure that all of the city’s fire stations are staffed during times when the Fire Department is short-handed. Otherwise, stations would have to be temporarily shut down when the department is short on personnel.

Gates said another 23 percent of the Fire Department’s overtime funds for the next fiscal year will ensure firefighters receive proper training, including hazardous-materials training.

Orr suggested that hiring more employees might be a better solution for the Fire Department than to continue paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime.

But Gates, during a Tuesday phone interview, said understanding the Fire Department’s budgetary system and overtime funds is a complex process.

“I’ve run some cursory numbers and have been in tune with the budget and what things can be funded by additional people versus what is overtime that is just a nature of our system,” Gates said. “That’s the more complicated question. Because we run a platoon system, some things you just can’t accomplish without bringing groups of people in. If I want somebody on A platoon, B platoon and C platoon to work to a common goal, then sometimes I have to bring in the other platoons that normally aren’t scheduled.”

Another factor regarding overtime, Gates added, is that during the four years he’s been chief the number of calls the Fire Department responds to has increased from 3,000 annually to about 8,500 annually.

The nature of these calls run the gamut and include fire response, emergency medical assistance and hazardous substance control.

Plus, the Fire Department conducts business inspections for day cares, those seeking alcohol licenses and structures with advanced fire suppression systems. The department also hosts or participates in community outreach programs such as wildland urban interference, fall prevention for elderly citizens and CPR training.

In terms of the department’s effectiveness, Gates said the survival rate of cardiac patients transported to the hospital by the department is above the national average. Of a total amount of $14.2 million worth of property involved in fires in Pocatello this past fiscal year, the department saved $13 million, nearly a 96 percent success rate.

Gates said the department responds to most calls within 5 minutes or less.

He said it takes a minimum of 14 to 16 firefighters to extinguish a fire in a smaller residence but to maintain that level of staffing 24 hours per day requires overtime during times the Fire Department is short-staffed.

Brown later apologized to Gates for criticizing him at the budget hearing, but Brown also said he wants the Fire Department to find a more sustainable solution to its overtime expenses.

“I chewed you out in front of other people, so I need to apologize to you in front of other people,” Brown said to Gates after the budget hearing. “But my frustrations are very real. It feels like sometimes the only way to affect change during my time on the council is to get frustrated.”

Brown continued, “But I am genuine in my desire to figure out how we solve this. I think there’s other things we can be doing so that we aren’t repeating ourselves. I am sorry about the way I passionately approached it.”

In a phone interview with the Journal following the hearing, Brown said his frustration was also a byproduct of being in the budget hearing for several hours and Gates just happened to be on the receiving end.

After the hearing, Brown and Gates discussed meeting again at a later date to work collaboratively toward an overtime solution for the Fire Department, Brown added.

Gates responded to Brown’s apology with zeal of his own.

“I approach the fire service with the same passion,” Gates said. “And ironically, I’m viewed as one of the most progressive fire chiefs in the state and that’s why I’m the president of the Idaho Fire Chiefs Association. I take my job very seriously. I take my leadership part in this very seriously. And I do not want to fail this city.”