Jersey City firefighters union president: Understaffing puts residents and JCFD members in danger

By Amy Sara Clark/The Jersey Journal
February 07, 2010, 6:23PM
David Jolkovski/The Jersey Journal

Joseph Krajnik, president of Local 1066 of the firefighters union, talks about the understaffing of the Jersey City Fire Department.

The Jersey City Fire Department is so badly understaffed that firefighter and civilian safety will suffer, according to the firefighters' union.

"You can't just cut if you're down to the bone," Joseph Krajnik, president of Local 1066 Firefighters Union president told The Jersey Journal during a meeting last week. "Something's going to happen and it's probably going to be (cost) the life of a firefighter."

In the 1980s, Jersey City had 564 firefighters -- today it has 380.

On Jan. 14, Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy announced that the city has reduced the number of fire companies from 26 to 22 and cut the city's arson unit from 13 people to two because there aren't enough firefighters to go around.

City officials agree that staffing levels are low, but say they're not so low to be dangerous.

"Of course we would like to have the maximum manpower, but in view of the current economic downturn, our taxpayers simply cannot afford such a burden," Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy said in a written statement. "However, we are doing more with less and have shifted our resources to strategic areas -- three of them being rather recently constructed firehouses."

Krajnik and Fire Chief Michael O'Reilly agree the staffing problems are not due to having too many officers in the department. Over the past few years, retiring officers have for the most part not been replaced. As of March 1 there will only be 135 fire captains, 21 battalion chiefs and six deputy chiefs, according to O'Reilly.

They also both agree with studies that say a municipality needs an average of 5.4 firefighters per fire company, per shift to be effective.

But even with only 22 companies operating, the JCFD currently staffed at an average of 4.3 firefighters per shift.

The cutbacks mean there's not enough firefighters to cover sick days and vacations; so far the city has spent $2.8 million in firefighter overtime out of $4 million it has budgeted for the fiscal year ending June 30, according to both Krajnik and O'Reilly.

But like Healy, the fire chief denies that the cutbacks will endanger the safety of either firefighters or the public.

"Are we short staffed? Absolutely," O'Reilly said. "Should the public be concerned about fire safety? No. As of right now I don't foresee any public safety problems because we can still maintain our response time of three-to-five minutes."

He added that he believes Krajnik's decision to take his concerns to The Jersey Journal is an effort to try to manipulate public opinion during contract negotiations. The firefighters' contract expired in December of 2008.

Krajnik, however, denied the charge, saying he was bringing the issue to the media because he was concerned about safety.

"The problem we have is that people who don't want to make the hard decisions ... nobody's listening," he said.