4. Staff Report 2022 fire dept hiring
Staff Report
Date of Meeting: May 4, 2022
To: City Council
From: Mike Hinz, Fire Chief
Re: Approval to Hire 3 new members
Background:
Scandia fire department currently has a roster of 23 employees. Our goal personnel number is 30, this number
was derived from the fact that we are a paid on call department and not every employee is available all the time.
A medical response call requires 4 personnel, a motor vehicle accident requires 11 personnel on average and a
structure or wildland fire requires at least 16 personnel for the initial response, but will use 30-40 personnel by
the time the fire is extinguished.
For this reason, we have requested to hire up to 5 personnel every year, until we can reach our goal of 30 active
members.
This year we did receive 5 applications, but after review of the applications and the interview process, 2 of the
applicants have either withdrawn their application or not been able to meet the requirements.
Issue:
Should the council approve hiring 3 new members?
Proposal Details:
Scandia Fire and Rescue would like to hire 3 applicants; Zachary J. Caldwell, Brent G. Gross & Steven M.
Stefano conditional on passing Osceola hospitals physical / medical testing and a Criminal background check.
These 3 applicants have completed & passed the interview process and agility test at the fire station.
Fiscal Impact:
The fiscal impact per year per employee is estimated at $2,000. This includes certification classes (EMT & FF1
each class $1600), hourly wage during in-house training and hourly wage for responding to emergency calls.
One of the candidates is already an EMT so we will see a savings there.
Options:
(1) Approve the conditional hiring of Zachary J. Caldwell, Brent G. Gross & Steven M. Stefano
(2) Approve conditional hiring of some of the candidates
(3) Not approve hiring of any personnel
Recommendation:
Option (1).