People attending the Salt Spring fire district’s town hall meeting at the Ganges fire hall training room Sept. 9 heard a familiar refrain when it came to the subject of the draft 2025 budget.
Salt Spring Island Fire Protection District (SSIFPD) CAO Rodney Dieleman’s detailed presentation showed a proposed 9.88 per cent increase over last year, close to the 9.02 to 10.91 per cent annual increases seen since 2021. The projected 2025 budget is $5,649,934.
As heard for the past few years, high inflation and additional wage costs are the major contributing factors.
“We were trying to squeeze everything to make sure that the budget came in as low as possible,” said Fire Chief Jamie Holmes. “But even at nine per cent we are going to have challenges moving forward because all of our suppliers’ prices have gone up on everything. So we’re feeling constraints, just like everybody else.”
Raising compensation for paid-on-call (POC) members by a dollar an hour for training and five dollars for call-out time is in the plan. As well, another career position will be added to the current roster of 13, but essentially to cover other firefighters’ holiday or sick time and reduce the significant overtime costs incurred.
“That position is added not to add more staff, but to backfill,” explained Holmes. “Our overtime line items were getting higher than we would like to see, so we managed in the last round of collective bargaining to get language for, in essence, a staffing pool position that we can move around. They can work different shift patterns, and that will save us on the overtime line item.”
It will be the second “pool” position, he said, as one was added last year.
The new position, POC wage increases plus International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) collective agreement changes will result in wage and labour burden costs rising 7.14 per cent to $3,708,874 next year.
POC rates will rise by $4.75 an hour to $26.50 (with the B.C. average being $27.49) for call-outs and by $1 an hour (to $22.75) for training, the meeting heard.
Jeff Outerbridge, one of about a dozen members of the public attending the meeting, asked why POCs couldn’t be used for relief purposes. Holmes said POCs did sometimes provide the relief required, but the IAFF collective agreement states any overtime available must first be offered to union members. However, he added, there’s a recognition that working too much is not healthy, so an overtime cap was also negotiated along with the second flex position.
“Our approach was, ‘We’re looking out for your mental health and wellness, and part of that is also making sure you take time off.’”
Outerbridge also asked if there would ever be a cap on the number of career firefighter positions. It was acknowledged that the union will likely continue to push for increased paid staff, preferring to see three or four people per shift rather than the current two.
Some $1,094,125 of next year’s $5.65 million budget is for capital costs and reserve funds, including saving for new fire trucks, water supply infrastructure, building maintenance and work being done to build the new Ganges fire hall now. Dieleman said he would recommend always putting away about 20 per cent of the annual budget for capital purchases.
An update on the new fire hall project was also provided to the meeting, with the gist of it being that things are going well, with building inspection issues related to second-storey access and the hose tower resolved, and a number of contracts signed.
Holmes said contracts for civil, foundation, rebar, structural wood, structural steel and framing have all been signed. Electrical, mechanical, drywall, millwork, paint and landscaping services have not yet been determined.
When asked about local contractor involvement in the project, owner’s representative Hans Hazenboom explained that despite meeting with the island’s contractors’ association and encouraging members to submit bids, few have done so to date.
“I would say probably about 80 per cent of them have said they were not interested, or they were so busy themselves and they don’t have the manpower.”
It was noted that local company Charlie’s Excavating did get the site preparation contract.
Hazenboom said Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure access permits are not yet in hand.
Dieleman also gave an update on the department’s five-year strategic plan. That plan and all other documents referenced in the town hall can be viewed on the saltspringfire.com website or accessed through the links in this story.