City Council votes to retain consultant to review Fire Department staffing

(Updated 12:08 p.m.)
PROVIDENCE – The City Council has agreed to retain a consultant to review staffing and organization of the Providence Fire Department, including its organization and rank structure, staffing levels and issues in litigation concerning the administration’s restructuring of platoons.
The consultant, MMA Consulting Group, is based in Plymouth, Mass., and will be paid $37,600, according to a spokeswoman for the council. The fee will include several meetings with council officials to discuss progress, as well as initial and final reports.
The firefighters’ union contract expires at the end of the next fiscal year, and the consultant’s report will offer guidance for negotiations, according to City Council President Luis A. Aponte.
“This report will offer a vital understanding of how the department should be structured and staffed, giving the administration and the union an independent framework to guide negotiations going forward,” Aponte said in a news release.
The study will commence this month, with an initial report available in February, according to the release.

Paul A. Doughty, president of the Providence Firefighters’ union, wrote in an email that he was pleased to learn the Providence City Council has engaged MMA Consulting Group to review fire department operations, but said this should have been done before implementing the “reckless change in the shift structure. The members of the fire department will participate fully in the study.”

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