Review says fire chief underpaid

By Bruce Walkinshaw - Penticton Western News  Published: October 28, 2010 6:00 PM

The City of Penticton is getting good value for the money it spends on firefighting, although there are some small areas where the department could become more efficient, according the city’s top firefighter. Penticton fire chief Wayne Williams had no comment on a previously blocked-out portion of the city’s core services review that indicates Penticton’s fire chief “is likely underpaid” by about $10,000 a year. Williams did, however, respond to assertions in the $70,000 review that the city has higher firefighting expenses than comparable municipalities, suggesting the review’s analysis is missing pertinent information. “It should be noted other municipalities include districts that must operate more fire halls and cover a larger area,” reads a section of the review. “Some municipalities that have maintained a larger volunteer service have fire protection costs that are only 30 per cent of what Penticton spends. Further, Penticton expenses are an estimated ($500,000 to $1.5 million) higher than Vernon.”Noting that since the review was written, Vernon’s fire department has increased its staff, likely bringing its expenses closer in line to Penticton’s, Williams said that the comparison is not totally accurate as Vernon has a different budget structure."For example, we include our fleet in our budget and they don’t,” explained Williams. “They put it in a separate budget so it is hard to compare both numbers.” Williams also noted that while the review included comparison to Vernon’s fire department, it did not include Port Moody’s, a city Helios included in the list of municipalities it said it analyzed for the review.“(Port Moody) is a smaller community and their budget was about $1 million higher than us,” said Williams.

Having outlined some of the review’s deficiencies, Williams said overall the process is a valuable one as it presents an opportunity for him to take a deeper look at his department’s budget as well as its operations in general.“When we look at those recommendations, we can say: ‘How can we do things better? Is there a different way of doing things? Is there a cheaper way of doing things? Are we doing everything we should be doing?’ That is how I look at it.”Williams said managers from every department in the city have been working collectively to workshop each other’s budgets, a process he finds quite helpful.“We are kind of throwing a lot of things out there, trying to find some good alternatives,” explained Williams.“I think the fire department has been really cost-effective over the years, but sometimes there are things that we have missed (because) we haven’t looked outside the box. So, this is giving us that opportunity.”