Thursday, the final task of the Baltimore municipal council was to consider a proposed budget of $ 362 million for the Baltimore City fire service, an agency that has accumulated Large employees’ overtime deficits Invited by staff shortages in recent years.
The proposal of $ 362 million for the year 2026 represents an increase of 10.7% compared to the $ 327 million in funding allocated to BCFD last year. “Deleting fires and emergency rescue” and “emergency medical services” are among the individual services to see the most important increases.
Out of these $ 362 million, $ 339 million will now come from the City General Fund – a reflection of the decision to eliminate the EMS special fund and transfer every $ 75 million to EMS income expected to the general fund. The ministry will also receive nearly $ 8 million in federal and state subsidies, around $ 3.24 million more than last year.
The budget proposed by the financial year 2026 of the ministry allocates $ 5.2 million to the Opioid return fund – funds acquired by Huge colonies with pharmaceutical companies Linked to the city’s opioid crisis – for contracts contracted. It also puts aside $ 500,000 to create two new positions in the application of the fire code to “improve the execution time for permit exam”.
BCFD chief James Wallace said that these new positions could be used to hire new inspectors in the Marshal of Fire, bringing his total staff from 33 to 35 employees.
“Currently, we have a list of eligible candidates, and this list is deep,” Wallace said during an exchange with District 1 advisor Mark Parker. “… It seems that it is at the moment, the most favorable way, the path of the slightest resistance and the most appropriate means would simply be to go through the process (and) to create these two positions.”
Wallace welcomed the budget to allocate more than $ 20 million to “communications and shipping”. He said that this funding would allow 911 distributors to use new “revolutionary” technologies to respond to emergencies and improve public security.
“We are now taking advantage of geofencing technology and artificial intelligence in our 911 call center,” said the chief. “These advanced tools allow us to proactively deploy resources and monitor conditions in real time with remarkable precision.”
Interrogation of the council
Leaders, including President of the municipal council Zeke Cohen, Asked Wallace on the methods used to “recruit and keep” BCFD employees to respond to the fact that the department lacks enough workers – in particular paramedical – to fulfill its functions without counting generalized overtime of employees. Third quarter estimates have shown that the ministry should lead to a deficit of $ 41.7 million for the 2025 financial year, according to a May 13 presentation By the director of the Baltimore budget, Laura Larsen.
“Can you describe the controls you put in place to … reduce overtime, and also what you do to recruit and keep more EMTS, paramedical paramedics in force so as not to continue to have this problem of exorbitant with a lot of unpaid positions?” Asked Cohen.
Wallace responded by painting what he called an “staff image” of the daily needs of the department. According to the chef, BCFD demands that a total of 307 employees work every day – a “land force” of 242 more than 65 additional EMS workers.
The chief continued that the ministry currently considers the “buckets in overtime” when you rely on overtime to provide vacancies, which means that an employee who worked 80 hours will be invited to work a quarter of opening before the one who worked 100 hours in a given pay period. He said that the Department is currently maintaining a spreadsheet with at least 1,000 potential candidates, but refused to develop its specific retention plan because it is currently being negotiated with the local union 734 FIREFIGHTERS.
“I dragged through the window of a McDonald’s one night on Falls Road and I recruited two people from the driving service. It’s so simple,” said Wallace. “We just have to approach the citizens of this city, and I think we have done a very good job for that.”
© 2025 Baltimore Sun. Visit Baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.