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REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION Date: 5/20/2024 Item No.: 7.d. Department Approval City Manager Approval Item Description: Fire Department Staffing Review 1 2 Background 3 The Roseville Fire Department has been serving the City of Roseville since 1944. After 4 nearly 75 years as a predominantly paid-on-call/volunteer organization, the fire department 5 recently transitioned to full-time on-duty staffing in 2015. The fire department has slowly 6 transitioned over the course of the last eight years to now be at a complement of 24 full- 7 time firefighters in 2024, not including the Assistant Fire Chief and Fire Chief. 8 9 The initial step of the transition to full-time staffing, entitled Phase I, was the hiring of six 10 full-time firefighters. This cost was primarily off-set by part-time firefighter wages and 11 transitioning two existing fire prevention personnel (2080 hours, Monday-Friday position) 12 into the operations division of the department. Over the course of the next four years, the 13 department added between 1-3 additional full-time firefighters annually. 14 15 Part of the department’s transition to more full-time staffing in 2018, which was termed as 16 Phase II, was the need to address call volume increases and to initiate new and enhance 17 existing services. In 2018 and 2019, as the department was staffed with 18 total firefighters, 18 our daily staffing was between 4–6 firefighters on-duty, staffing only two emergency 19 response vehicles. During this time we were experiencing delays in our response due to 20 multiple calls at the same time as well as calls requiring more than a one vehicle response. 21 Over the past five years, the fire department has experienced a substantial increase in call 22 volume which was not fully anticipated in 2017 and 2018. At that time, the fire department 23 had been experiencing a 2-4% annual increase in call volume, but over the course of the 24 next several years has experienced more than 5% and even greater than 10% increases in 25 total call volume annually. The department’s total call volume has ballooned from less than 26 5,000 calls in 2018 to nearly 7,000 calls in 2023; a 40% total call volume increase from 27 2017-2023. A note, as of this week, 2024 is currently 12% ahead of the same time in 2023. 28 29 The call volume growth is in both Fire and EMS calls with most of the new calls going to our 30 multifamily housing developments. As the City of Roseville has experienced an increase of 31 multifamily housing units by more than 25% since 2017, that factor appears to be the main 32 reason for the increase in calls. 33 34 In 2020, after a multi-year approach to educate the community and City Council about the 35 need for more staffing (Phase II), the Fire Department was awarded a Staffing for Adequate Page 1 of 3 Qbhf!41!pg!257