WYOMING. Mich. – It’s no secret that fire departments around the country are constantly battling personnel reductions and budget cuts, and the city of Wyoming is no different. What does set them apart though, is their ability to creatively sidestep both.
Back in 2012, when the city was experiencing issues with staffing and funding, city manager Curtis Holt hatched an idea: instead of going out and making new hires, why not utilize the resources they already had on their payroll?
“They said, ‘well, how about we train our existing employees?’” said Dave Oostindie, who works as the Wyoming Environmental Services Supervisor. “They’re already here, they’re all around the city, we can call them at a moment’s notice.”
The city decided to train certain employees to not only work their day jobs, but also get them certified as fire and HAZMAT responders. It allowed them to save money on expensive new hires, while alleviating pressure from their full-time fire crews.
Take Oostindie, for example. After getting fully certified to work as a firefighter anywhere in the country, now Dave can answer a call from his job in the utilities department and in just minutes, be on the scene of a fire helping crews already there.
“You could be doing whatever you’re doing - you could be out in [the] street right now working on a pothole or repairing a manhole or sewer line - and these pagers on our hips go off and you know right away,” said Dave, who also works as the liaison between the roughly 20 employees who are dually trained and the full timers.
“Budgets are tight everywhere so if you’ve got existing employees who are already being paid, why not try and utilize them?”
The idea is catching on. Neighboring Rockford has adopted a similar program and Wyoming’s concept is often used as an example at national conferences.
The dually trained crews work out of Station 1 on Burton Street. Out of the roughly 200 calls that station gets yearly, some number of the DTE’s lend assistance on about 35-40 of those calls.
It’s served to benefit other area fire departments as well. Oostindie says after many of the DTE’s get their certifications through Wyoming, they’ll end up working as volunteers at stations in their own hometowns.
