Fire officials want to keep perks (preferences) for Stamford applicants

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Fire officials want to keep perks for Stamford applicants

By Donna Porstner
Staff Writer

December 6, 2004

STAMFORD -- The city wants to continue giving residents a leg up on out-of-town applicants for firefighting jobs.

A proposed ordinance would extend a policy that gives applicants who have lived in Stamford for at least 12 months five extra points on the written firefighter's exam.

Applicants for firefighter jobs must pass a written exam, a physical agility test and an interview with the Fire Commission.

The Board of Representatives instituted the bonus points during the last exam in 2002, but the ordinance that created it has expired. Director of Human Resources Dennis Murphy said the fire chief and commission have asked to continue the policy, but only the Board of Representatives has the power to reinstate it.

"The fire chief and the Fire Commission want to do it and we don't object," Murphy said.

The bonus points are applied only to a passing grade, he said.

Fire Chief Robert McGrath said he prefers to hire residents because about 65 percent of the city's 237 firefighters and fire marshals live out of town and can't respond quickly in an emergency.

"For an emergency or a multiple-alarm fire or a major snowstorm, we're scrambling to get people back to work," McGrath said.

Some Stamford firefighters live in such places as Oxford and Monroe in Connecticut and Amenia and Huntington in New York and it takes them more than an hour to get to work, he said.

The bonus helped, he said, because 79 percent of Stamford residents who took the 2002 test were eligible to be hired, up from 8 percent in 1998.

Of the 39 firefighters hired from the 2002 test, 19 were Stamford residents, McGrath said.

The only hitch is that once they are hired, nothing prevents them from moving out of town. The union contract requires employees hired after July 1, 1997, to live within 30 miles of city limits.

When McGrath joined the department 34 years ago, only Stamford residents were hired. The city started hiring nonresidents after it was slapped with a discrimination lawsuit in the late 1970s, he said.

The Board of Representatives' Personnel Committee voted 4-1 in favor of extending the bonus points Wednesday night.

The lone nay vote was cast by city Rep. Randall Skigen, D-19, who said he doesn't see the value in rewarding an applicant for their address. Some residents of Old Greenwich can get downtown faster than those living in outlying Stamford, Skigen said.

He said he knew of a man with an Old Greenwich address who did not get the five points during the 2002 test, though the man's neighbors with Stamford addresses did, and that doesn't seem fair. It would be better to give five bonus points to volunteer firefighters who have demonstrated their commitment, he said.

"If we give preference to anybody, I'd rather give it to somebody who's shown a dedication to firefighting rather than to somebody who lives in town," he said.

The residency bonus favors residents with no firefighting experience over Long Ridge Fire Company volunteers who live in New York state, Skigen said.

McGrath said Stamford is one the few municipalities in Connecticut that does not give preference to residents applying for firefighting jobs.

"In Hartford, you actually have to be a resident to sit for the test," he said.

Majority Leader John Boccuzzi, D-2, said he voted for the residency bonus because he wants to encourage firefighters to live in Stamford.

"It's a safety thing," he said. "If you need them, you want them quick."

If more city employees lived here, Boccuzzi said, they might not expect such big wage increases year after year.

"Maybe then some of them would have more respect for how much taxes we're paying," he said.

Giving residents preference might increase minority representation in the fire department, Boccuzzi said.

Minorities account for 14 percent to 17 percent of the department, McGrath said. In 2002, six Hispanic men, four black men and one woman made it to the hiring list, he said.

The full board is expected to take up the issue during its monthly meeting tonight but is not expected to decide until January. A public hearing is planned for later this month.