SAFER Grant Accepted, Four Laid-Off Firefighters to Be Rehired

Last summer, the lost seven men, three through attrition and four through layoffs. Those four are on their way back to the department, thanks to the acceptance of the SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant that the Ferndale City Council accepted Monday night.

"We'll get them back ASAP — as soon as humanly possible," Ferndale Fire Chief Kevin Sullivan said Monday after the council meeting.

The four firefighters expected to come back are Jared Berousek, Jake Latson, Joseph Helmick and Daniel Hoard.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awarded Ferndale a SAFER grant worth $851,164 to hire back four firefighters for two years — salaries and benefits — at no cost to the city. The catch was that the city couldn't lay off any firefighters, or it would lose the grant.

At the time, the city was facing about a $2 million projected shortfall with a millage election on the horizon. City officials, including Sullivan, said the department would again lay off firefighters this summer if the millage didn't pass, thus losing the grant.

On May 3, the millage passed by 197 votes. On Monday night, interim City Manager Mark Wollenweber strongly recommended that the council accept the SAFER grant, now that the millage has passed and staffing levels have been stabilized.

"The process worked how we envisioned it," Ferndale Councilman Scott Galloway said. "We took it one step at a time."

"And we did it with facts and not fiction," Sullivan quickly added. "It worked out smoothly."

The grant runs from April 7, 2011, to April 6, 2013. However, Sullivan said Ferndale should be able to receive the full amount by filing an addendum at the start of the second year of the grant, explaining why the grant wasn't accepted right away.

"There's a 95 percent chance we'll get the full amount by claiming financial hardship," Sullivan said.

Wollenweber added that there are some unknown issues within the department — namely, the potential loss of revenue if Pleasant Ridge decides to pull its fire agreement with Ferndale in two years and contract instead with Berkley's Public Safety Department. Nonetheless, he recommends accepting the grant because the city wouldn't be affected by Pleasant Ridge's decision until after the grant expired.

Sullivan said that before the firefighters come back to work, they will have to fill out paperwork and undergo background checks, certification reviews and physicals as if they were new hires. "We've never laid anyone off before," Sullivan said. "We'll be going through the process tomorrow at a staff meeting."

With current staffing, the fire department is "fairly frequently" running six-men crews, seven occasionally, Sullivan said. "We'll be back up close as we can to eight-men crews," Sullivan said, which he said is the ideal staffing level for the department.

"We're all really happy to have these guys back," Sullivan said.

Mayor Pro Tem Kate Baker expressed confidence that with the passage of the millage increase in the May 3 election and being able to accept the SAFER grant, the city will not make any layoffs for two years.

"This says that we as a city, as a council, that we have every confidence that we will not be making a layoff in the next two years," Baker said. "Because of the milllage passing, we're confident, and we have a stable future ahead of us."