Excerpts from jg-tc.com:

The Mattoon city council is scheduled (Tuesday) tonight to consider eliminating the assistant fire chief position within the Mattoon Fire Department due to budgetary restraints.

The proposed ordinance also calls for restructuring the management of the fire department by transferring the assistant chief, currently Sean Junge, to fill a vacant shift captain position.

Regarding the budgetary restraints, the proposed ordinance states that the city approved a deficit budget for fiscal year 2018-19 and continues to make adjustments in an effort to reduce this deficit.

In addition, the proposed ordinance states that the city is in negotiations for a new contract with Mattoon Firefighters Local 691. The city is making efforts to comply with an arbitration ruling to return staffing levels to 30 firefighter bargaining members. Mattoon currently has 23 firefighters.

If Junge becomes a shift captain, he would be eligible to become a bargaining member of the firefighter union and would have to take a 15 percent reduction in salary if this change occurs.

The Mattoon firefighters posted a statement on their Facebook page that says the elimination of the assistant chief position puts “the community and our department in a more compromised position” and is “another direct attack on department staffing.

The statement indirectly referred to the city’s recent elimination of the Mattoon Fire Department’s ambulance service. City officials have said that this service was losing money as the city dealt with a budget deficit and that this service duplicated the work of existing private ambulance providers in Mattoon.

Tags: Mattoon Fire Department, Mattoon Fire District, Mattoon Firefighters Local 691, Mattoon might eliminate assistant fire chief position