Jefferson City Fire Department looks to fill open positions

The Jefferson City Fire Department is in the process of hiring more firefighters.

The agency is short about three positions but only has enough city funding to pay for one.

Right now, one hundred people are vying for one opening at the Jefferson City Fire Department.

The group of applicants took a written exam last weekend. Later in March, the top-scorers will take a physical agility test.

“Right now we have one vacancy,” Division Chief Jason Turner with the Jefferson City Fire Department said. “And this list we’ll utilize for the next two years will allow us to hire from that list as we have retirees or openings.”

At full staffing, each of the three shifts in the department would have 23 employees. But since 2013, two of the shifts have each been down one position.

The fire department is currently applying for a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant that would fill those spots. The FEMA grant would cover two firefighter’s salaries for two years.

“We’ll wait throughout the next eight months for the determination whether it’s been awarded or not,” Turner said. “And then from that point, the city will decide at that time whether or not they’re going to fill those positions out of general revenue or if they’ll continue to remain vacant.”

But the small staffing shortage has not affected response times, according to Turner.

“There’s no effect directly to response times,” Turner said. “But what it does do, and we’ve shared this with the council and the public safety committee, is that there is an effect on overtime.”

In fact, response times improved a fraction over the past two years.

In 2014, it took an average of 8 minutes and 8 seconds from the time of a 911 call to the time firefighters arrived on scene. Last year, that dropped to 7 minutes and 55 seconds. And so far in 2016, the average response time is 7 minutes and 48 seconds.

Turner attributed the improvement to collecting more data over the last year and sharing it with the different shifts.

“It’s something that we’ve worked really hard on over the last year in collecting these numbers and this data and try to analyze it,” Turner said. “Time is of essence in an emergency situation.”

If the department does get the FEMA grant, Turner said the city would have to decide if it is willing to continue funding the two positions after the grant’s money expires in two years.