Hermantown Fire Department Adding Two Full Time Paid Firefighter Positions For The First Time

HERMANTOWN, Minn. — For the first time in history, the Hermantown Fire Department will be staffed with two full time paid firefighters.

The fire fighters will also serve in leadership roles as Fire Chief and Fire Inspector. According to Mayor Wayne Boucher, the new structure begins January 1 and will cost the City less than $300,000. He explained how the general fund would be affected.

“That will be paid for out of the general fund which does come from property taxes,” said Mayor Boucher.

The city has applied for a grant, but the change may necessitate an increase in property taxes.

“We set our levy and preliminary budget every year in September and that will be included in that. Now it will raise taxes slightly, but I think the increase is worth it for the citizens,” said Boucher.

A position called Director of Public Safety has been created and will be filled by current Police Chief Jim Crace. He will be the first in this role and will oversee both Fire and Police Departments. In addition to their leadership responsibilities, the Fire Chief and Fire Inspector will also answer calls through the week. The evening and night positions will be staffed by part time paid City fire fighters on call.

Changes were needed to improve the existing response system.

“Currently when a call comes in the page goes out to all volunteers and everyone that is available responds,” said Police Chief Jim Crace.

Crace says the new structure will be much more efficient. “We are hopeful that we will be able to bring on anybody that’s uh willing and able to switch over to our new system. Basically, we are going from a 100 percent volunteer system with small reimbursement to paid on call to augment our two full time folks.”

Crace says Hermantown is the fastest growing city north of Minneapolis and with the increase in population, emergency calls have increased 10 percent annually. Hermantown has been grappling with how to best serve the City’s fire safety needs for months.

“We kind of settled on having two full fireman covering calls during the day, M-F was very important because it is hard to find volunteers with their full time jobs. Then I developed a system to right size the response. Have people paid or on call so they know when they have to respond,” said Crace.

Hermantown Mayor Jim Boucher stressed the public will not notice any downturn in the level of service. “In fact, this model we’re going to will allow us to upgrade the service over time as demand increases. There could be the possibility one day of adding more full-time people so there are full time people on at night, but that has to depend on demand. What we don’t want to see is the quality of life in Hermantown to go down for any reason.”

Mayor Boucher and Chief Crace emphasized appreciation for the current volunteers who have tirelessly served the department saying they filled a much-needed role with honor. Both say the shift from volunteer to paid staff is the best solution for the people of Hermantown.

“Public safety is putting a strain on government all over the state and we are doing the best we can to answer those needs and keep our citizens safe,” said Boucher.

Although the transition from volunteer to paid firefighters won’t happen officially until January 1, Chief Crace hopes to have the Fire Chief and Fire Inspector in place by the end of October.