Firemen set up new departmental training budget

It would have been former alderman Michael Furrh’s first chance to legitimately stay home for a council meeting in the last four years, but as fate sometimes does, duty called.

So, there was Furrh once more when Mayor Fred Hilscher gaveled Monday’s council meeting to order—the former councilman out in the galley now rather than his usual spot up front—standing in for Shiner Fire Chief Billy Petru, who had items on Monday’s agenda but was out of state just then.

That’s more than could be said for two other council members Monday. Alderman Greg Murrile was out with family illness, and Will Franklin, elected just last month, was also absent. His counterpart by way of last month’s election, Egon Barthels, did attend, and took Furrh’s old seat at the table, both literally and figuratively, as Barthels will serve as city liaison for fire/EMS matters as Furrh did.

Furrh, one of the assistant fire chiefs in Shiner, filled in for Petru, who was away in Oklahoma.

The first item involved the ongoing fire station project. Unfortunately, Furrh said, that project hit a stalemate, at least for now. “I spoke with (project manager) David Sheblack earlier for the latest,” he said. “But frankly, I’m out of energy with it.” 

Firemen first started discussing plans for a new fire station more than three years ago, and it was initially raised as a fully grant funded project awarded to the department by the Dickson Allen Foundation.  

Beyond that, it’s proven nothing but a series of unfortunate events since, local fire department leaders found, and the project price leapt more than 20-fold since then. “Nothing’s changed, so there’s really nothing much to report there right now,” Furrh said.

Moving on, Furrh addressed council on the fire department’s desire to establish a training line item on its budget in the year ahead. No dollars were requested. Just the line item to help them better account for their own expense.

While weekend’s derailment and the fire department recent meeting with city insurance rating assessors might provide ample cause form the department wanting to step its training efforts, Furrh said the need for training had a lot more to do with a recent decision to adopt the NIMS system protocols (which is something the city and department both need for continued first responder funding opportunities), which require the department to certify the training of its members.

Most can now be done online and/or in-house (as assistant EMS chief and local fireman Tim Decker is a certified trainer for the needed hands-on portions), but those certifications all cost money, just the same.

“Essentially, they now require that volunteer departments like Shiner’s structure itself in much the same way as a paid, professional force does,” he said. “Part of that comes with keeping a much better track of everyone’s qualifications and/or certifications. This helps start moving that direction.”