Dearborn Fire Chief Outlines Consolidation Plan with Melvindale

The Dearborn City Council received its first comprehensive look at a proposed merger between the city's fire department and Melvindale on Wednesday.

Fire Chief Joseph Murray outlined the plan prior to the council's budget meeting with Mayor John B. O'Reilly, Jr.

"The goals of consolidating are to improve the services to both communties, reduce costs, and to eliminate some redundancy," Murray said. "Consolidating with Melvindale makes a lot of geographic sense."

Under the plan, Melvindale would pay Dearborn $1.45 million annually, which includes $1.3 million in operating costs and $150,000 that would go into a capital reserve fund to cover major vehicle repairs and vehicle replacements. The operating costs would pay for salaries and general vehicle maintenance. If the agreement ends, each city would receive its share of the capital reserve fund.

As part of the merger, Dearborn would own all of the combined department’s vehicles, and would rent Melvindale’s fire station for $1 a year. In addition, Murray said all four Dearborn stations and the Melvindale station would remain open.

The plan also calls for no layoffs, Murray said.

"Due to the planned retirement of some of our firefighters, we'll be able to bring over all of Melvindale's department without exceeding our current staffing level,' he said.

The proposal has several benefits to both communities, as well, Murray said.

For Melvindale, the new partnership would increase the number of firefighters who respond to a call. Currently the department sends one engine and one rescue truck with four to five firefighters. Under the consolidation, two to 28 firefighters may respond, depending if the call is a fire or a medical emergency. For an advanced life support rescue, the department would send an engine and an ambulance staffed by five firefighters. Basic life support rescues would dispatch one ambulance with two firefighters.

The increased staffing would also cut down on Melvindale's overtime cost. Currently the department pays $300,000 for 15 firefighters, and relies on mutual aid from Dearborn and Allen Park. Dearborn currently pays $200,000 in overtime with a staff of 121 firefighters.

"Cutting down on the overtime cost will be a tremendous benefit to the residents in both cities," Murray said.

Better response time in Dearborn

With the addition of the Melvindale station, Murray said response times for both communities would be reduced to between 2 to 4 minutes. Currently Dearborn's response time in some areas of the city range in the 6 to 8 minute mark.

"Melvindale is always closer than at least one Dearborn station in any part of Dearborn," he said. "By adding Melvindale, we'll have faster response times everywhere south of Michigan Avenue."

Murray said the departments have already increased their mutual aid presence in both communities over the last six months.

"Our relationship has grown tremendously," he said.

Other benefits for Dearborn include:

• Increasing the available manpower to 28 firefighters per day.
• Increased availability of EMS.
• Increased purchasing power.
• Adds Melvindale's confined space rescue team to the department.

In response to a question from Councilman Robert Abraham on whether officials from both municipalities plan to re-evaluate the contract after a year, O'Reilly said Dearborn city attorneys are currently working out the details.

"We just submitted the contract to Melvindale on Monday, so we want to give them some time to review it," he said. "At the end of the day, this is going to be a difficult decision, and they have to analyze how it is going to affect them. There's a lot of emotions that follow a decision like this," he said.

James O'Connor, director of finance for Dearborn, said under the proposed agreement, Melvindale's fire department would be absorbed by the DFD, and firefighters would be DFD employees subject to the city's compensation package for accounting purposes. Melvindale will retain post-employment healthcare and retirement benefits for its seven senior firefighters for their duration of their career and retirement.