Prince George's County Council tackles chronic fire and EMS staffing crisis
The Prince George's County Council just held a hearing to address and try to solve a chronic staffing shortage of fire and EMS workers.
Two updates that have residents concerned are that response times are averaging six to eight minutes, and in Greenbelt, there is only about 13% coverage.
"Accepting something of emergency services to be available 13% of the time, that's criminal. Every day when I go to work I look back at my house and I think to myself is there someone coming when I'm not home to save my family," said county resident, Charles Fowler.
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Reassigning firefighters was only supposed to be a temporary fix, and now community leaders and residents are urging the county to re-think its approach. In June, Prince George's County Fire and EMS Department Chief Tiffany Green announced plans to reassign about 50 fire and EMS workers from four stations to help address staffing challenges across the county. The reallocation plan reassigned officers from stations in Berwyn Heights, Greenbelt, Bowie-Blair, and Bunker Hill.
But now the department is feeling a tremendous amount of heat, with a new number showing six to eight minutes response times on average. "Our response times have increased by nearly two minutes on average during this reallocation plan. In life-threatening situations those two minutes can be the difference between life and death," Tiffany Papanikolas, the Mayor of Berwyn Heights told the council.
Staffing challenges still exist. Chief Green said the reallocation plan produced "significant downward trends" in the number of required holdovers and callback hours that personnel worked. She said this has helped improve mental and physical wellness. But those who testified at this hearing argue it is compromising public safety.
The fire department has some pretty large recruitment classes coming up, but the chief said they are still short 220 positions to be fully staffed.
"We have traditionally prided ourselves on knowing, for the most part, people in the fire service complete 20 years or more of service. What I saw is employees only serving for 10 years, some 5, and most leaving for nonpublic service jobs for various reasons," Chief Green said.
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Even with the relocation, the department is still facing record-high attrition. For starters, salaries here in the county are among the lowest in the region. The decline in the healthcare field and volunteering has been a persistent problem for years. Prince George's County Fire and EMS Department Chief Tiffany Green said the department has just not been able to operate the same since Covid. The department continues to see a record number of firefighters and paramedics leaving the field. Before the pandemic, people in the fire service would typically complete 20 years or more of service. That number is now down to a maximum of 10 years on average.
The department's attrition rate in 2020 was 28 firefighters a year. So far this calendar year, the department has lost 66 firefighters to other jobs or careers. Right now, Prince George's County has 1,004 sworn firefighters and paramedics, a deficit of 38 positions to make the budgeted complement. But the chief said to be fully staffed, they are still looking to hire 220 positions. The next recruiting class in December is scheduled to start with 20 recruits, and alongside the March and June classes, the department is expecting 150 recruits. This is expected to be the most the department has ever hired in a year.
