Fire Chief's Compensation Discussed...Again

Anita Weston, Reporter
Rich Civic Times

 

GARDEN CITY, Utah. April 15, 2013.  The Garden City Fire Board Workshop was held to discuss two items.  One item was dealing with compensatory time incurred by the fire chief.  The other item pertained to the short term rental inspections currently being taken care of by the Fire Chief. 

Short term rental inspections have been taken care of in the past by the Garden City Fire Chief.  He has a list of items that he checks to make sure each rental home is safe.  Some items on the list apparently came from the commercial code and some from the residential code.  The Board felt there should be some consistency in what items were checked so that individuals would know what would be checked and why it was on the list.  During the discussion, it noted that the items on the Fire Chief’s list are all included in the International Residential Code. 

Chief  Dan Kurek had made numerous calls to various fire departments throughout the State of Utah.  He had determined that the list he had been using was almost identical to what other cities and departments were using.   

Mayor Spuhler was in attendance at the meeting.  He felt that perhaps the Fire Chief along with the Fire Board Chairman, the Building Inspector, and himself could get together in a day or two and come up with a form that would please everyone.  If they could get it done prior to Thursday; then the Fire Board would be able to vote on it at their meeting to either accept or reject the suggested form.  A time and place was determined for such a meeting. 

The Fire Department felt that a fee needed to be assessed to cover the time spent by the Fire Chief in doing these inspections.  It was decided that the City would collect the fees and transfer them to the Fire Department when they determined the amount of time the Chief spent on each of the inspections and could come up with a fair money amount.  This determination will be made at a regular board meeting. 

It was noted that the Fire Chief doing the inspections had another positive aspect to it.  The Chief would become familiar with the layout of the home so that in the future if there were a fire, he would know where things were.  The Board also indicated that anything to do with fire should be the Fire Department’s responsibility.  Mayor Spuhler said he felt very strongly that the fire inspections are extremely important and should be done by the Fire Chief. 

The other issue of compensatory time was discussed.  Whenever the Fire Chief works more than 40 hours a week, he must report those hours.  Those hours are called compensatory time meaning that he will be paid for them, or he will need to take time off equal to the amount of hours that have been worked beyond the 40.  No one wants to pay for extra hours, so the Board has asked Chief Kurek to take time off when he has gone over the allowed 40.  Any compensatory hours that have not been used and that have accumulated at the end of a quarter of the year– a three month time period– will automatically be wiped away.