The Truth about “Public Safety”, Part 2:
Kalamazoo

From Firehouse magazine, December 1984:
(Editor’s Note: “PSO” means either “Public Safety Organization” or “Public Safety Officer”)

In Kalamazoo, Michigan, the 18-month old PSO program is either a great success or a charade, depending on whom you talk to. Advocating PSO in public speeches and news articles is former Fire Chief George Danz, now assistant director of public safety. On the other side of the controversy is equipment operator George Kalamaras, a firefighter and union representative who works out of Kalamazoo’s Squad 1. Ironically, Kalamaras was on the negotiating team that brought acceptable PSO terms to the rank-and-file firefighters of Kalamazoo.
PSO was implemented in Kalamazoo, says Danz, only after careful study by a committee including union representatives, the police and fire chiefs, city administrators and citizens. The committee went to various cities where PSO had been tried or was in force, determined to learn from the successes and avoid the mistakes of other communities. The PSO program they decided to implement is voluntary, providing for a phased-in reduction of firefighters and police through attrition, and includes a 240-hour training course for cross-training police and a 9-week police academy course for cross-training firefighters. Other features include liberal salary and pension increases for those who cross-train.
Although no official fire statistics are available yet on Kalamazoo’s PSO program, Danz says that more men on the fire scene are making for “better fire protection than we had before. And I wouldn’t have said that two years ago,” he adds. “Then I thought we were going to have trouble with guys adjusting, not making it to the fire scene, dogging it. But our people in the field are making it work.”
To listen to George Kalamaras, this upbeat picture is a far cry from the truth. He says that fire losses have doubled under PSO, that costs have also escalated beyond what was originally envisioned and that morale is low. At the root of it, he says, was simple greed and ambition on the part of administrators who wanted to make a name for themselves and firefighters who sold themselves out.
“(The city) bought this program by giving us a tremendous increase in salaries and pension,” he says. “They offered an early-out situation, allowing the pension to kick in a full year ahead of time for 20 people who knew they were going to go early out both in the fire department and in the police department. And they threatened layoffs and demotions to the younger guys.
“Obviously, a guy who was going to get laid off otherwise was going to vote for the program, so they had those 40 built-in ‘yes’ votes against us going in. On the day of ratification, I and four other members of the bargaining committee, and our attorney, recommended rejection of the package. The guys couldn’t get up to the front of the room fast enough to say yes.”
“From an individual’s standpoint,” says Kalamaras, “it’s to a guy’s benefit to cross-train -- they’re making anywhere from $5000 to $9000 more than the guys who haven’t. But from the standpoint of morals or ethics, it broke the union in the City of Kalamazoo, and it was done the way they do it in most any city, and that’s with money.”
Although few people have left the PSO department, and many men in media interviews profess satisfaction with the new work, Kalamaras says in reality morale is low. “In private conversations they will say that they hate the job but can’t turn down the money. A friend who was an officer in the fire department and is no a PSO lieutenant had a W-2 of over $9000 more than his old salary -- and of course he’s going to say everything is great. He’s adding toward his pension, building up his last three years’ average compensation.”
According to Kalamaras, the extra perks are costing the city an additional $1 million each year, and the PSO department’s overtime budget is also running over the projections. Fire losses are going up, he says, when action at the fireground under PSO is subject to police-style discipline.
“Instead of pulling up at the fire scene and making the hydrant and connecting an inch-and-a-half and starting your ventilation and going through this whole process of things that I call ‘automatic responses’, now you must wait for orders from the commanding officer at the scene, and if you aren’t told what to do you just stand by and wait. In our line of work, firefighters can’t wait to be told to start ventilation or whatever else is necessary. We lose houses all the time now, and it’s not his [the PSO’s] fault -- it’s simply a case of a police person without any experience as a fireground commander making the wrong calls at the scene. You can’t expect the same efficiency out of a 240-hour course that you can out of a 15-year firefighter. Conversely, you can’t expect a firefighter who goes to a nine-week police academy to come out and be a streetwise cop.”
As for district-wide team training, described as an ongoing program by George Danz, Kalamaras cites his own lack of training, and says he even filed a grievance and asked to be given hazardous materials instruction, which the new PSO officers receive. He was told he didn’t need it. He says that the training officers, all of whom are high-salaried men, are “not going to blow the whistle on themselves” and admit that the training program isn’t adequate.
“Only 3 percent of the departments in America are PSO,” he concludes. “If this thing is so great there would be a groundswell to do it, and everybody and their mother would be flocking to PSO. But they’re not doing it. That’s because there is no substitute for your professional and traditional firefighter and your professional and traditional police officer.”