# Abc news article about oak brook illinois. "fire the firefighters one by one"



## tony1 (Sep 28, 2010)

For those not from the area, Oak Brook is a very upper class suburb of Chicago and is an area with rich people and very large homes in gated communities. They also have alot of BIG corporations headquartered there. This man has been in the news for years out here. He is the real life Scrooge.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=7692654


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## JPINFV (Sep 28, 2010)

> The village says 27 of the department's 28 firefighters earn more than $100,000 a year in total compensation.



Really? 100k plus a year? I kinda of feel bad for that one fire fighter getting screwed, but, come on. Six figure salary? They better be doing more than just waiting for a fire call and fighting over who's not on the ambulance that day.


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## tony1 (Sep 28, 2010)

I don't know the breakdown of the pay (ie overtime, medical insurance, etc). If anyone finds it, please put a link here. BTW that was a quick response JP. Did you already read this article earlier?


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## JPINFV (Sep 28, 2010)

One final comment on the article itself since I first posted while reading it. 



> In Oak Brook, sales tax revenue from the shopping center means residents don't have to pay property taxes for village services.
> 
> Village firefighters feel like residents have been getting their services essentially for free, so why should they make concessions?



Screw it. Fire every single one of them for absolutely failing to understand how taxes work. Sorry, if you're that stupid, I hate to think what other problems might arise in actual life threatening situations. Thankfully, the City of Bell scandal is going to start weeding out every one of these little corrupt criminals.



tony1 said:


> I don't know the breakdown of the pay (ie overtime, medical insurance, etc). If anyone finds it, please put a link here. BTW that was a quick response JP. Did you already read this article earlier?



Nope, read it fast and wrote my first response as I was reading it. When 96% of a department is making six figures, somethings wrong, very wrong.


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## abckidsmom (Sep 28, 2010)

JPINFV said:


> Really? 100k plus a year? I kinda of feel bad for that one fire fighter getting screwed, but, come on. Six figure salary? They better be doing more than just waiting for a fire call and fighting over who's not on the ambulance that day.



Not unheard of, especially in areas where the cost of living is ridiculous.


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## tony1 (Sep 28, 2010)

Alot of the suburban deptartments are up there pay-wise in my area.


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## tony1 (Sep 28, 2010)

Most cap-off around 75k so then if they are figuring what the dept contributes for insurance, etc, and then OT. Hell its really up there.


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## tony1 (Sep 28, 2010)

I am from Long Island (Suffolk County) and the police there make over 100k due to the cost of living. That has been on the internet for years because people always complain. Start is about 57k and caps off after so many years at about 97 if I remember correctly but don't quote me. Anyway its on their website somewhere.


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## Aidey (Sep 28, 2010)

That $100,000 figure includes all of their benefits, so it is skewed quite a bit. That area is VERY VERY wealthy, and if they want the FFs to live anywhere near Oak Brook they are going to have to pay them a higher than average salary.

Here is a article with slightly more info: http://firegeezer.com/2010/09/26/oa...ees-denigrated-here-is-the-rest-of-the-story/


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## tony1 (Sep 28, 2010)

Aidey said:


> That $100,000 figure includes all of their benefits, so it is skewed quite a bit. That area is VERY VERY wealthy, and if they want the FFs to live anywhere near Oak Brook they are going to have to pay them a higher than average salary.
> 
> Here is a article with slightly more info: http://firegeezer.com/2010/09/26/oa...ees-denigrated-here-is-the-rest-of-the-story/




Thanks for that link.


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## JPINFV (Sep 28, 2010)

Aidey said:


> That $100,000 figure includes all of their benefits, so it is skewed quite a bit. That area is VERY VERY wealthy, and if they want the FFs to live anywhere near Oak Brook they are going to have to pay them a higher than average salary.


What does the area being "very very wealthy" have anything to do with it? Does the McDonalds worker get paid twice the minimum wage starting just because it's a wealthy area? How many other jobs aren't compensated at a greater rate just because of the area? Should fire fighters have to be immune to commuting? 


Ok, so the $100k/employee (I'll give that last employee a raise) including pay, benefits, and overtime. How much overtime? How many more people can be hired after cutting overtime? Looking at the numbers provided by the link, it looks like they are just under a 2:1 vehicle staffing ratio, which makes it a good argument that the department is understaffed. How many people can be hired by cutting overtime? Similarly, what is included in the benefit package?

The fact is that there's still a mental boundary that anything over 100k/yr is de facto rich, and even living in a higher class area, $100k, be it combined or just take home including overtime, shouldn't be struggling. Sure, you might not be able to live in Hollywood, but it's definitely enough to get you out of South Central (insert your local upper class/lower class areas). If they hired a few more people, slashed over time, and got the average reimbursment under 100k, I'm willing to bet that there would be much less argument, despite paying around the same amount, if not more. 

The next problem is that the fire service as a whole has done a good job of marketing themselves as "blue collar workers." Go onto Hulu and watch season 3 of The Academy where they follow Orange County Fire Authority's academy. Watch how often the academy chief declares fire fighting to be "blue collar." Sorry, but if I was in charge of anything, especially in a high class area (which most of the areas where OCFA serves definitely is), my employees aren't "blue collar workers" but "highly trained professionals." Sorry, you can't claim the magical mantle of being "blue collar" while demanding a "white collar" wage. Want to be blue collar? Fine, then don't be surprised when people blame you for higher taxes in the same way that people are blaming other blue collar unions (read: auto unions) for bankrupting companies. 

Which brings up the next issue. Emergency service employees are their own worst enemy. Fire, EMS, and police all have similar issues in this sense. There's a reason why one of the blogs that I read linked to the 'Firegeezer' blog included a request to avoid attending meetings until the IAFF has discussed this. The last thing the union and trade organizations wants is some idiot (and... sorry. Read the comments section on anything online critical to police, fire, or EMS and you see the department idiots online shouting some t-shirt slogan with bad grammar and spelling) walking into the meeting and making matters worse by confirming the feelings that these guys really aren't worth much more than minimum wage (and... yes... people who post crud like, "sounds like a bunch of rich jackass's to me, they need to leave emergency services alone. that guy prob. never got to sit in a fire eng. when he was a kid, prob to busy getting his *** kicked by future firefighters" most likely doesn't deserve much over minimum wage. Quote is from "Scott" on the blog linked by Aidey) is not going to help anything. In fact, it will make it much much worse.

What needs to happen is to go on the offensive. They need to prove that they are worth that much money, not whine that everything would be fine if they just instituted a property tax.


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## bstone (Sep 28, 2010)

> apparently referencing the fired head librarian, who has advanced degrees and made $98,676 a year.
> Source: http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=325508



Why be a firefigher/medic when you can be perfectly safe and make just as much.

But then he goes on to say:


> "You may like the library, but when you call 9-1-1, you want a policeman or a fireman before someone to tell you where the books are in the library," says [Xinos] the man who has talked of privatizing, outsourcing or even closing the library.



Except it seem he's willing to do without the FFs, EMTs or cops.


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## slloth (Sep 28, 2010)

So someone who goes through years of schooling and training to do a  highly skilled job that requires in depth knowledge and important decision making skills should not be compensated?  I don't get it.


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## JPINFV (Sep 29, 2010)

slloth said:


> So someone who goes through years of schooling and training to do a  highly skilled job that requires in depth knowledge and important decision making skills should not be compensated?  I don't get it.



Years? Really? Again, OCFA seemed to be able to take non-fire fighters and turn them into fire fighters in a matter of months, definitely not years.


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## 46Young (Sep 29, 2010)

Their population is around 9,000. In firing a $100,000/yr firefighter, your per capita benefit is maybe $11.50. Not exactly impressive, especially considering that the median family income is $169,718. What's more, the residents don't pay property tax. Funds are provided primarily by sales tax receipts from the abundance of local business.

What's disgusting is that they're advocating putting their own citizens and workers out on the streets just to teach others a lesson. 

Good for the firefighters for having the foresight to put safeguards in place to protect their futures.


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## 46Young (Sep 29, 2010)

JPINFV said:


> Years? Really? Again, OCFA seemed to be able to take non-fire fighters and turn them into fire fighters in a matter of months, definitely not years.



4-5 months of full time education and training, and then their rookie year, where they're required to study all the dept's operating manuals, review the material from the academy, and also the standard on duty inservice or out of service training for company ops and multi unit drills, as well as numerous in station drills for all. It's also not unusual to begin intense study for a promotional exam six months out from the test date. More and more depts also either require or give weight to education for career advancement. So add on a degree or two as well when promoting at the officer level. Not to mention the mandatory Officer I,II, and III, and also Instructor I,II, and III. 

Completing an academy doesn't make you a fully competent firefighter. It's a continuous learning process, along with concentrated study and instruction/mentoring during the first year after the academy.

When you tally up the academy, the rookie year, and the frequent drilling and such, it really is years of study and training. Finishing the academy is just the beginning.


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## JPINFV (Sep 29, 2010)

46Young said:


> 4-5 months of full time education and training, and then their rookie year, where they're required to study all the dept's operating manuals, review the material from the academy, and also the standard on duty inservice or out of service training for company ops and multi unit drills, as well as numerous in station drills for all. It's also not unusual to begin intense study for a promotional exam six months out from the test date. More and more depts also either require or give weight to education for career advancement. So add on a degree or two as well when promoting at the officer level. Not to mention the mandatory Officer I,II, and III, and also Instructor I,II, and III.
> 
> Completing an academy doesn't make you a fully competent firefighter. It's a continuous learning process, along with concentrated study and instruction/mentoring during the first year after the academy.
> 
> When you tally up the academy, the rookie year, and the frequent drilling and such, it really is years of study and training. Finishing the academy is just the beginning.




...so basically... it's not really any more different than any other job where you plan on getting promoted then short of taking job competencies and giving a merit badge? You go through the inital education (be it outside education from the company or internal training), go through a specific training time, and then work to maintain competency and learn new skills. The only difference is an advertising company doesn't offer scripting 1, 2, and 3. They just expect their commercial writers to be able to do their job. I've always found it amazing that some fields have to think their special for doing things that other fields do themselves.

Edit:

I'd also like to add that in the real world, people don't get overtime for drills. An emergency department does an MCI drill? They don't call people in on their day off, they just do the drill. The local EMS coordination system wants to run a dry run through of the MCI patient tracking software ("Redinet" where I am), an extra radio nurse doesn't come on duty. Sorry, but when your job is to be "engaged to wait" (IIRC, is the specific labor law phrase), then training is a valid part of your job and considered by everyone else as "work", not something that gets thrown up as "years of training required." Otherwise "years of training" is just synonymous with the real world term "job experience."


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## 18G (Sep 29, 2010)

JPINFV.. your sentiment towards Firefighters and EMS seems pretty poor. I understand there are those few that cast the majority in a negative light but to denounce all as unworthy of decent compensation because they don't hold a Master's degree is a little out there.


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## JPINFV (Sep 29, 2010)

18G said:


> JPINFV.. your sentiment towards Firefighters and EMS seems pretty poor. I understand there are those few that cast the majority in a negative light but to denounce all as unworthy of decent compensation because they don't hold a Master's degree is a little out there.



What's decent compensation then, and seriously, do people have a right to live in the city they work? There's a difference between a region's cost of living and smaller internal area's cost of living. Heck, where I currently live that can change rather dramatically by going 5 miles down the street.

Also, when did it become wrong to expect people to actually work? I fully understand that a job where one is "engaged to wait" is different than a 9-5 job, however I don't think it's completely unreasonable for additional work to be done that is pertinent to the mission of the agency while being "engaged to wait" between calls.


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## Shishkabob (Sep 29, 2010)

LMAO.

In the video they say "Inaudible" whilst you can clearly hear the man say "man in panties".


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## Aidey (Sep 29, 2010)

I'm not going to quote every one of your posts JP, but some info for you.

There are a large amount of people who feel that a city's public service employees should be required to live in the city they work. The last 2 places I have lived this has been a major arguing point, with a very vocal group saying that all employees should  be required to live within the city limits, applied retroactively, current property owned be damned. I know these areas are no the only ones who have people making this argument. So it may not be that people feel it is their "right" to live in the city they work in, it may be that they are required to. If they are being required to, they need to be paid a living wage for living in that city. 

These FF/Medics are being paid from the mid 50s to the mid 60's. The rest is made up of their benefits and associated costs. I would say they are actually underpaid for that area, try and buy a house within 10 miles of Oak Brook with that salary, you won't get far. That being said, I've spent a good amount of time in Oak Brook, and the surrounding areas. This is not an area where you go 5 minutes down the road and run into a low income section. This is a very very wealthy area surrounded by very wealthy areas. 

Where I used to live the FD serves about 35,000 people, has twice the staff, and 1/3 of the median income and home values, and each FF costs the city about the same. Salary ranges are similar, and total costs are around $100,000 per employee, per year. I suspect that if someone was willing to do some research their costs are similar to the costs at many departments, including those from areas with significantly lower mean salaries and housing costs.


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## LonghornMedic (Sep 29, 2010)

I think the larger message this guy was trying to get across is that firefighters have been, for a lack of better words, fleecing the public. Since 9/11, FF and their unions have done a masterful job at pulling at the heartstrings of the country. In return they got some very good pay, equipment and benefits. Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Clark County FD, for example, all lived high on the hog since 9/11 and now are so bloated with high salaries that their respective councils are cutting back FD budgets and letting some of them go(in N. Las Vegas). Their unions of course are not willing to budge at all. They are not willing to give up any of their ridiculously high wages in a city where housing and cost of living has plummeted. They have FF making around $100,000 with some making upwards of $200,000. Now they can't give back 5%? Oh no, that would just bankrupt the poor FF. So instead, because of the way their contract is set up, the City of Las Vegas laid off other city employees, including some City Marshals. So because the union and its FF are so greedy, other hard working employees, including cops, lost their jobs so these guys could continue to work 10 days a month while pulling in $100,000 a year. This is happening all across the country. Communities are finally waking up to realize how the FF unions have taken up huge chunks of budgets and when asked to do their part to help out, they balk! In return, FF are complaining that they don't feel appreciated. We all appreciate FF and the hard work they do, but it's time to bring salaries back down to earth. FF have dangerous jobs, but so do cops and most cops aren't pulling down $100,000 a year. And most cops work 5 days a week, plus time for court appearances. And don't even get me started on EMS pay! EMS is grossly under appreciated and under paid. So I have little sympathy towards FF griping about taking a 5% pay cut. All done, off my sap box.


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## 46Young (Sep 30, 2010)

JPINFV said:


> ...so basically... it's not really any more different than any other job where you plan on getting promoted then short of taking job competencies and giving a merit badge? You go through the inital education (be it outside education from the company or internal training), go through a specific training time, and then work to maintain competency and learn new skills. The only difference is an advertising company doesn't offer scripting 1, 2, and 3. They just expect their commercial writers to be able to do their job. I've always found it amazing that some fields have to think their special for doing things that other fields do themselves.
> 
> Edit:
> 
> I'd also like to add that in the real world, people don't get overtime for drills. An emergency department does an MCI drill? They don't call people in on their day off, they just do the drill. The local EMS coordination system wants to run a dry run through of the MCI patient tracking software ("Redinet" where I am), an extra radio nurse doesn't come on duty. Sorry, but when your job is to be "engaged to wait" (IIRC, is the specific labor law phrase), then training is a valid part of your job and considered by everyone else as "work", not something that gets thrown up as "years of training required." Otherwise "years of training" is just synonymous with the real world term "job experience."



Where did I say that we drill on OT? We do all our in station drills, company ops, multi unit drills, and EMS CME's on duty, either in service for the in station drills, or out of service for the MUD's and EMS CME's. We also have quaterly OOS OARS training at the academy, which sometimes involves company ops, combined fire and EMS scenarios, testing new equipment, infectious control refreshers, ePCR training, fire protection systems, just to name a few things. In comparison, at my old hospital they used to give CME's as OT after end of shift, and at my old third service, they had us do six hours of monthly CME's, also on the big clock.

Personally, I see no fault in how our personnel are trained, and how our promotional process is structured.

The initial academy training is only a foundation, the bare essentials. The rookie year is intended to solidify the probie's skills and knowledge, and also for them to build upon that, and also learn the dept's specific SOP's and various operating manuals. It would be very cost ineffective to keep a recruit in an academy for a whole year or two when istead you have them as minimal staffing in the field where they're guided by their Master Tech, their officers, and the other firefighters. Even after the rookie year, those drills and OOS training serves to improve all personnel to better serve the public. It's not like having an accounting degree, a nursing degree, or something similar, where you're expected to do it all after an orientation period. There's a huge amount of information and skills to retain and improve upon, as well as various specialties such as fire investigations, HazMat, TROT, etc. 

The old stereotype is that we just sit around playing cards, X-Box, or watching movies all day. The reality is, we're doing all those drills and evolutions I mentioned previously, as well as building walkthroughs, public education, station cleaning, equipment maitenance, PT, and such. Personal time allocations when not on calls are dictated by the station commander. This is typically after 2000-2200. Some of the busier stations will allow crews to attempt short naps, provided that all work is completed, so that they're better prepared to run high call volume at night. We earn our pay. That downtime that a few have remarked about is typically filled with those activities I've described.

Regarding career advancement, there really is no perfect system. The merit based system was created to ensure that there is no discrimination and favoritism. Your list score is determined by your objective test score, a practical scenario if applicable, oral boards, a small bump for time in grade, and formal education. The time in grade tops out after eleven years, and is only around 5% of the score. Education carries increasing weight the higher up you go in rank. I understand whn some say that promotion should be done on an individual basis, but favoritism will always play a role. Our merit based process requires that the candidates do intense study for the position, sometimes as much as six months out from the exam date. Education cannot be ignored, obviously. There are no giveaways. The material that we're being tested on is relevant to the position. List positions can be decided by tenths of a point, so each candidate is doing their best to prepare for the position. Everyone is treated equally, and their list position is entirely up to them. The OFC/INS I, II, and III are all appropriate for each rank, I for LT, II for Capt I, and III for Capt II and above.


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## Veneficus (Sep 30, 2010)

If I could just point out...

I started in a suburb where we could go weeks without a call and the pay was really great. Nobody on that roster should have been paid what they were.

In larger or busier departments, the idea of sitting around playing cards, etc. is not exactly accurate.

Sure, in larger depts some companies are busier than others. But there is usually more than enough work to go around. The last fire company I was on could see 2-3 structure fires a day, often with 1 one a shift, any number of EMS responses, as well as other types of responses. The engine in the same quarters didn't do 1/2 that many calls, but they had their fair share too. We also got paid less than the initial place I worked. (But I am proud to know I saw more fire in a week than many of those suburban guys will see in a career. A few months ago a local suburban captain saw the first fire in his 20year career and they did a write up about it in the paper.) 

Nothing in EMS short of an MCI or natural disaster equates to the physical activity of fire suppresion. Especially in the extremes of climate.

It is absolutely inaccurate to compare firefighting with jobs that require more thinking than physical labor. I don't know anyone in healthcare that dresses in 60+ lbs of gear and then engages in some lifting, carrying, dragging, and climbing in an environment not suitable to life one or more times on a busy day. Even using a hydraulic spreader is far more work than pushing the IV cart or any other gear in the hospital over to a patient.

It s not just about physical labor either. In larger departments, and now in some smaller ones as well, a degree is required for any meaningful career advancement. Which at the present time is more than can be said for easily 95% of US EMS. 

It is absolutely unsafe to not have down time when engaged in that level of activity, both for providers and, for lack of a better term, callers.

On EMS side, I have worked EMS stations that could never see a station in 12hours doing only 911, with shift change on the road. I have worked stations where 14 "legit" ALS calls in 24 hours was not unheard of and 4 hours of downtime was an easy shift. But even that was an easy day compared to a moderate day of being on a rescue company.

Emergency response is not like working in a hospital. I don't think firefighters should be paid in the $100,000s (excluding benefits which can really run up the cost of a firefighter) because the local tax base supports it or tries to.

But the fire service does need to be paid fairly. Which includes OT for off duty drills or any other duty if it exceeds the hours in a pay period or requires special education or skills.

If an Attending physician, or any other hospital worker, on salary worked the alloted hours in a period (I know only a few hospitals pay physicians a salary) I would not expect that physician or person to come in on off time for nothing to run a drill either. Nor would I expect them to obtain special credentials, or perform special duties that other physicians didn't without an increase in their compensation. 

I agree that the fire service is usually run extremely inefficently. I agree that some union locals have gone way too far. But these incidents are not the normal examples of pay in my experience. It has been long known that the wealthier suburb firefighters do less "work" than the larger city counter parts for less pay. But that is a system issue that plagues the whole country. 

In my opinion the firefighter in the wealthy section outside of chicago shouldn't earn a dime more than the firefighter on the busiest company in chicago, infact the chicago person should earn more. But getting that to happen is about as likely as EMS getting proper pay also.

If these firefighters don't want to take a pay cut, they are free to leave. There are more than a few people who would take their place in a heartbeat. Including some from big city departments that may not earn that in any rank in their respective dept.


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## Aidey (Sep 30, 2010)

Vene - The issue is their pay is not out of line, "Oak Brook has 28 firefighters or firefighter/paramedics, with a per  position cost of over $100,000/year. *Salary range for  firefighter/paramedic is $51,016 – $68,871*." ~$69 is on the high end of things, but if someone is a 20 year FF/Medic I don't think that is out of line. Where I am right now a 5 year FF/EMT pulls in $71,000 (Yes, I am aware that is absurd).


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## Veneficus (Sep 30, 2010)

Aidey said:


> Vene - The issue is their pay is not out of line, "Oak Brook has 28 firefighters or firefighter/paramedics, with a per  position cost of over $100,000/year. *Salary range for  firefighter/paramedic is $51,016 – $68,871*." ~$69 is on the high end of things, but if someone is a 20 year FF/Medic I don't think that is out of line. Where I am right now a 5 year FF/EMT pulls in $71,000 (Yes, I am aware that is absurd).



it is out of line if they don't have to live in that neighborhood.


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## Aidey (Sep 30, 2010)

How so? The surrounding area is pretty much the same. The area I live in has a median income of around $37,000.


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