Firefighters Furious Over Nutter's 'Rolling Closures'
The city's firefighters union is furious over Mayor Nutter's plan to cut departmental overtime with what are called "rolling closures" of fire stations.
KYW's Mike Dunn reports that the mayor plans to save $3.6-million in fire department overtime by closing stations for a day now and then, with the closures rotated throughout the city.
Nutter says rolling closures are a legitimate tool to reduce overtime while still providing fire protection:
"The alternative, unfortunately, would actually be layoffs, which could directly affect service. We do not want to do that. This is a way for us to save money and still provide high quality service, nothing more nothing less."
But Bill Gault, head of Firefighters Local 22, says the department is already cut to the bone and this will directly impact fire safety:
"This is all about a soda tax he didn't get. And he's making the fire deptartment pay."
Gault says his union plans to show up at stations that are temporarily closed and tell neighbors who he believes would otherwise be unaware.
(file photo)
