During a two-hour hearing Thursday night, Prince George’s County community members and first responders urged council members and department leaders to take a different approach to solving a shortage of fire and EMS workers.
In June, Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department Chief Tiffany Green announced plans to reassign about 50 fire and EMS workers from four stations to help address staffing challenges across the county. But that decision, community members said, has consequences.
“The loss of our local career fire personnel at Station 835 leaves our seniors feeling less secure, and it undermines the peace of mind we all should be able to rely on,” said Kimberly Potts, director of the Green Ridge House apartments in Greenbelt. “Prior to the loss of our local career fire personnel, we enjoyed rapid response times, often within just a few minutes, which provided a crucial sense of security for our vulnerable population.”
As part of a presentation to council members, Chief Green said the reallocation plan produced “significant downward trends” in the number of required holdovers and callback hours that personnel worked. That helped to improve the “health, safety and wellness” of staff, she said.
The reallocation plan reassigned officers from stations in Berwyn Heights, Greenbelt, Bowie-Blair and Bunker Hill.
Despite that, the staffing challenges aren’t improving. Green told council members a “considerable staffing deficit continues to exist to cover minimum staffing positions.” In July, 29 recruits graduated to help address the issue, but 28 workers have left since May, she said.
December’s class is scheduled to start with 20 recruits, and alongside the March and June classes, the department is expecting 150 recruits, which Green said is the most the department has ever hired in a year. But other recruiting obstacles remain, such as starting salaries, which she said are the lowest in the region.
“We don’t want to remain in this posture,” Green said. “It is our goal to staff as many stations as needed to deliver the best services we can to our community.”
Grant Walker, president of the Professional Firefighters of Prince George’s County, added that there aren’t enough ambulances in the system, and the county has lost two firefighters to D.C. this week and 27 since July.
“It’s no secret that this council has supported the fire department, and we failed to hire enough personnel to meet our attrition needs and growth,” Walker said. “There’s been no progress on the hiring front.”
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