Some images of Wauconda’s new Squad 341.
New Ferrara rescue pumper for Wauconda. Shaun Unell photo
Rear view of the new Wauconda squad. Shaun Unell photo
Archive for June, 2014
Several contributors submitted the information here about a possible change for the North Riverside Fire Department.
From the Riverside – Brookfield Landmark:
Facing a pension-funding crisis, the North Riverside village board finds itself in a position where it may look to privatize some village services — potentially its fire department — in order to balance its budget.
No decisions have been made, but the village board’s finance committee is scheduled to meet June 30 at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at North Riverside Village Commons, 2401 Desplaines Ave., to come up with a path forward.
“We have to do something radical,” Mayor Hubert Hermanek Jr. told the Landmark during an interview on Saturday. “Nothing is off the table.”
The June 30 finance committee meeting will follow in the wake of a hearing before the Illinois Department of Insurance that village officials have been ordered to attend at the Department of Insurance, 122 S. Michigan, 19th floor, in Chicago on June 26. According to Kimberly Parker, communications manager for the Illinois Department of Insurance, the hearing is being convened to allow North Riverside to present a course of action for coming into compliance.
In February 2013, the Department of Insurance issued a notice of non-compliance to the village regarding North Riverside’s contributions to its police and fire pension funds. North Riverside was one of five municipalities to receive the notices last year. At the time, North Riverside was warned to “take immediate steps to bring itself into compliance” with the state pension code.
Since 2008, North Riverside has paid just a fraction of its pension obligations; for four years running, the village paid nothing into its pension funds. During the 2013-2014 fiscal year, which ended April 30, North Riverside contributed about $340,000 to its police pension fund and about $223,000 to its fire pension fund.
In order to fully fund its police and fire pensions for the 2014-15 fiscal year, North Riverside must contribute about $1.8 million.
On Saturday, Hermanek said that’s exactly what the village wants to do.
“My hope is that we will completely fund the pensions,” said Hermanek. “It’s going to be difficult.”
That’s because if the village is to fund both its pension obligations and maintain village services at their current levels, the village will see its general operating reserves cut by almost $2 million.
That would drop the village’s general operating reserves to just about $2.1 million, which represents about 13 percent of annual expenditures. And that reserve would disappear completely by 2015-16 if service levels remain unchanged and pensions are funded completely.
“We would have a balanced budget if it wasn’t for the pensions,” said Hermanek. “It’s imploding the village. We have to do something out of the box. It’s not fair to residents to cut services and lay off people to make our pension obligations.”
A 2011 state law requires municipalities to meet its fire pension obligations. If a municipality doesn’t meet those obligations, according to the law, the state comptroller in 2016 will deduct up to “one-third of the total amount of any grants of state funds to the municipality” to cover the shortfall.
In 2017, that amount jumps to one half of any grants of state funds; in 2018, the comptroller can deduct the total amount to meet the shortfall.
In 2014-15, the village’s fire pension obligation is almost $744,000 and is projected to rise to $950,000 by 2016-17. Officials project spending $4.74 million (including the pension obligation and a $612,000 line item for paramedic services) for fire protection in 2014-15.
The village board still hasn’t approved a budget for the present fiscal year, which began May 1. And the board hasn’t made any final decisions on service cuts or delays in capital expenditures.
The village in recent years has raised rates somewhat, but not nearly enough to keep up with substantial increases being passed along to the suburbs by the city of Chicago. As a result, the village’s water fund has been running annual deficits in excess of $350,000, leaving the general operating fund to make up the difference.
At a special village board meeting that’s been scheduled for June 23, North Riverside trustees are expected to increase water rates by $1.50 per 1,000 gallons of water and impose a $15 per month “water operations fee” on all residential and commercial water customers. The increases are expected to bring the village an additional $800,000 to its water fund.
A draft version of the 2014-15 budget shows the village is predicting sales tax revenue will recover after coming in substantially below expectations in 2013-14. During the last fiscal year, sales tax revenues fell short of expectations by almost $720,000.
But officials are hopeful that a full year of sales at Costco, a new Chick-fil-A, Red Robin and other new retail businesses at the Costco outlots will cause sales taxes to rebound.
The Village of North Riverside is considering privatizing its fire department, saying rising pension costs and a state requirement that municipalities fully fund pensions have forced it to make drastic changes.
The village is publicizing the privatization proposal in advance of a June 26 hearing with the Illinois Department of Insurance, Mayor Hubert Hermanek Jr. said Wednesday. The department summoned the village to explain how the village plans to pay a $1.8 million public pension obligation by a 2016 deadline, Hermanek said.
At next week’s hearing, the village plans to propose cutting costs by shifting firefighters to a private provider of paramedic services the village already uses. The village could save $700,000 per year by expanding its 28-year agreement with Paramedic Services of Illinois to include the village’s 16 firefighters, Hermanek said. The savings would come from a reduction in overtime, vacation, workmen’s compensation, liability insurance and other costs, in addition to reducing the village’s pension obligations to the state, he said. The firemen would move to a 401(k) style retirement plan, he said.
Derek Zdenovec, secretary of North Riverside Firefighters Union Local 2714, said when reached Wednesday that the union had no comment. He said the union did not learn of the agreement until it was publicized Wednesday.
The union’s latest contract with the village expired at the end of April. Negotiations on a new contract had not yet begun as of this week, Hermanek said.
Under a new state law, municipalities must fully fund pension obligations by 2016, Hermanek said. If towns don’t make the payments, the state may take money from their sales tax revenues, according to a Village of North Riverside news release. The village recently reviewed budget figures showing it faces a $1.9 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2014-15, $1.8 million of which is from its pension obligations, according to the release.
thanks Dan, Joe, & Richard
As seen around … Chicago
Jun 19
This from Martin Nowak:
Here are some photos I’ve taken recently.
Engine 125’s house with a memorial in front of it.Ambulance 53 – 2007 Ford F-350/BraunAmbulance 82 – 2013 Ford F-350/2007 Braun
Engine 125’s house. Martin Nowak photo
Martin Nowak photo
Chicago Ambulance 53. Martin Nowak photo
Chicago Ambulance 82. Martin Nowak photo
Chicago Battalion 8. Martin Nowak photo
Another department in MABAS Division 7 is on the site. The Reddick Community VFD works out of one station with 21 volunteers to cover 52 square miles. They have an ambulance, a brush rig, two engines, and a water tender.
Reddick Engine 103, a 1997 KME on a Freightliner FL 80 chassis was originally part of the Sullivan West VFD in TN. Karl Klotz photo
Reddick Engine 105 (formerly engine 103) is a 1980 American Fire Apparatus front-mount pumper on an F-Series Ford chassis. It has 750 gallons of water with a 750-fpm pump. Karl Klotz photo
WBEX.org has a lengthy article explaining Chicago’s red ‘X’ program:
While walking around her Logan Square neighborhood Chicagoan Poppy Coleman noticed something peculiar about two rundown buildings: They bore metal signs emblazoned with a large red “X.”… she wanted to know more …
Since 2012 nearly 2,000 of these red “X” signs have popped up around Chicago. It’s not hard to find people posting in online forums, wondering aloud whether the red “X” means a building’s condemned, vacant or for sale. This program, meant to save the lives of [firefighters] and others, has run out of money.
On Dec. 22, 2010, firefighters were searching for squatters inside a burning, long-vacant laundromat on the 1700 block of East 75th Street, in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. As firefighters continued their sweep of the building, a wall fell and then the roof collapsed, killing firefighters Edward Stringer and Corey Ankum. Nineteen others were injured.
“When I first became alderman, one of the first visits that I paid was to Fire Chief Mark Neilsen,” said 50th Ward Ald. Debra Silverstein, who sponsored two city ordinances in response. The first ordinance, passed in 2011, required the department to catalogue buildings with bowstring truss construction, a variety that’s prone to collapse during fires.
Silverstein’s second ordinance sought to find and mark all of Chicago’s dangerous buildings. For that program they decided on rectangular metal signs displaying a big red “X”, a symbol used by fire departments in New York City and other some other cities. That iconography comes from a federal program for marking vacant structures.
Chicago doesn’t assign red “X” signs to just any vacant or abandoned building; a sign is a visual cue that a structure is structurally unsound and that firefighters should take precautions when responding to emergencies there.
Since Silverstein’s ordinance passed in June 2012, the Chicago Fire Department has put up 1,804 red “X” signs. That’s less than half of the more than 5,000 vacant properties registered in the city — itself a fraction of the estimated total of vacant and abandoned buildings in Chicago — but CFD Spokesman Larry Langford says it’s a start.
“We picked 1,800 that we wanted to get marked right away,” he says. When the program started, Chicago’s Department of Buildings sent over a list of structurally unsound properties for CFD to add to as they saw fit. The list from the Department of Buildings included a few hundred properties deemed more than 35 percent deteriorated. The department has largely left it up to aldermen and their offices to publicize the signs’ purpose.
There is a process to rehabilitate vacant and abandoned properties, but the city requires owners to obtain special permission before performing work on red x structures. Two years after the program began, however, only one building has successfully been repaired and had its red “X” legally removed.
… this program that was meant to save lives has run out of money. The city received $675,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Assistance to Firefighters grant program to fund the red “X” program. Most of that federal grant money went to two local contractors: AGAE Contractors and M-K Signs. Data obtained by WBEZ show the city spent all of that money over thirteen months starting in June of 2012, and hasn’t put up any new red “X” signs since July 2013.
thanks Dan
As seen around … Chicago
Jun 18
This from Dennis McGuire, Jr.
Here’s a new photo for Engine 16’s house that needs to be updated.Also housed there are:
- Ambulance 35
- 5-1-1
- 5-1-1A
- 5-1-11
- 4-4-12
Field Division South is also located there.
New house for Chicago Engine 16. Dennis McGuire, Jr. photo
On the site, Truck 51’s photo of their new truck is their previous truck. Shop# E-336 was initially given to Truck 51, but it went back to Crimson and when it returned it was given to Truck 62 (which is correct on the site).Here is a photo of the current Truck 51 which is now using Shop# E-341. It is a 2010 Spartan/Crimson 103′ RM
Chicago Truck 51 has been assigned they 2010 Spartan Gladiator Classic/Crimson 103′ rear mount aerial with Shop ID#E-341. Dennis McGuire, Jr. photo
Spike to 97 firefighter fatalities is primarily attributed to Yarnell Hill, AZ, fire and West, TX, fertilizer fire
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reported a total of 97 on-duty firefighter deaths in 2013, reflecting a sharp increase over the past few years. According to NFPA’s 2013 U.S. Firefighter Fatalities report, last year’s increase is largely attributed to the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona and the West, Texas fertilizer fire that together claimed the lives of 28 firefighters.
The annual report was officially released today at NFPA’s 2014 Conference & Expo in Las Vegas.
“Overall, firefighter death rates have declined in recent years. In fact, 2012 represented the second lowest level of firefighter deaths in 35 years,” said Dr. Rita Fahy, NFPA’s manager of fire databases and systems. “What we saw in 2013 was a spike due to two major incidents, with wildfires playing a significant role in the overall firefighter death toll.”
The Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona killed 19 firefighters making it the deadliest incident for firefighters since 9/11. The fire at a fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, claimed the lives of nine firefighters along with an EMT and five local residents, making it the fourth-highest loss-of-life incident for firefighters since 1977.
In 2013, the largest share of deaths occurred while firefighters were operating on the ground, with a total of 56 fatalities. This is the highest number of fire ground deaths since 1999 (excluding the deaths at the World Trade Center in 2001). Half of them occurred at 10 wildland fires.
“This was the fifth consecutive year that the total number of firefighter deaths was below 100, but the 2013 death toll was much higher than it has been in recent years,” said Fahy. “Our hope is that next year’s report reflects the general decline in firefighter deaths we’ve seen in the past few years.”
The firefighter fatality study is made possible by the cooperation and assistance of the United States Fire Service, the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program of the Department of Justice, Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the United States Fire Administration, the Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This from Jim Larsen:
Good afternoon everybody,
Our available golf foursomes are over halfway sold out. If you would like to join us once again for this worthy charitable golf tournament to benefit the families of firefighters killed in the line of duty, I strongly encourage you to get registered as soon as possible. I have included our flyer for your convenience. Please remember to “like us” on Facebook J https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chicagoland-Memorial-Golf-Tournament/458308140972277 Thank you for your continuing support!
The Essex Fire Department in Division 7 has been added to the site. A force of 18 volunteers runs 47 square miles out of one station in Kankakee County.
Essex Fire Department Tender 1412 is a 2001 Freightliner FL80/Darley 1500/2500/20A CAFS unit. Karl Klotz photo
Esex Tender 1417 is on a 2003 Sterling Acterra. The tank builder is not clear. It has a 500-fpm pump with 2,000 gallons of water. Karl Klotz photo
