The mayor of Campbell River questions whether hiring an extra firefighter in 2023 was the right move.
Kermit Dahl made the remark Tuesday morning (April 22) as a financial report shows firefighter overtime costs were at $490,000 at the end of 2024 – $21,000 more than 2023.
“After considering the fact that we had hired a flex firefighter and in the previous year the overtime had been $469,000 and after hiring a flex firefighter we’re at $490,000 the following year. So it doesn’t seem that our strategy worked very well at all,” Dahl said.
The flex firefighter position is costing city taxpayers $153,000 a year.
City staff noted the overtime at 193 per cent of the budgeted amount for overtime in 2024 was expected and a longer term solution is coming.
“(Firefighting) expenses did come in as we had anticipated. We had a lot of discussions during financial planning and previously about fire coming in over budget, they did as anticipated,” CFO Alaina Maher said.
She noted council approved taking $210,000 from city reserves to cover overtime (called a one-year operational project) in order to bring the tax increase down in 2025.
It’s expected a longer term solution to firefighter overtime will be addressed in the upcoming fire master plan.
A city report shows expenses for the entire fire department were up $1.1 million in 2024 compared to 2023 due to the new collective agreement with the Campbell River Fire Fighters Association (IAFF) and the additional flex firefighter.
Campbell River Fire Rescue has 27 career firefighters, 39 paid-on-call firefighters, one fire mechanic and one fire prevention officer.
