BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Mayor J. William Reynolds said Tuesday his administration is “absolutely” considering adding firefighter positions to next year’s budget, at a meeting where the city’s presentation of a new fire study drew objections from a council member and the firefighters’ union.
The study, Bethlehem’s first since 1995, recommends adding 28 firefighters over several years at about $3.1 million a year, we reported Saturday. Last December, when council rejected adding four firefighters to this year’s budget, the administration pointed to this study instead. Reynolds said he believes the 2027 budget comes out “two weeks from Friday,” which is Nov. 6.
Business Administrator Eric Evans presented the study to City Council’s Public Safety Committee; the consultant that wrote it was not there. Councilwoman Jo Daniels said she found discrepancies between the city’s slides and the report, and that her requests to have the consultant present it went nowhere, which city officials disputed. The firefighters’ union president said the city touched six of 48 recommendations.
Nothing was decided at the three-hour meeting, which pushed the 7 p.m. council meeting back an hour and 45 minutes.
More firefighters?
Asked by Councilman Bryan Callahan whether the budget will add firefighters, Reynolds said it is “one of many considerations.” The city budgets 24 firefighters per shift, he said, and filling every job would come close to the 22 on duty the study recommends as a minimum. Four jobs are open now, and four firefighters plan to retire in April and May, he said.
Over the past few months, as overtime dropped, more shifts have had 20 firefighters working, Reynolds said. Callahan said he hopes council adds at least four firefighters, citing about $2.3 million in overtime over two years.
What the city stressed
Evans highlighted the study’s findings that building fires make up 2% of fire department calls and that total calls in 2025 were 13% below their 2017 peak. The study also shows calls have risen since 2020. False alarms are 29% of calls and rose 32% from 2020 to 2025, the study found, and Evans said the city’s false alarm law is worth council’s look.
City figures he showed put firefighters at 11.6 sick days each in 2025, against 8.3 for all city employees. Bringing that to the city average would recover about 317 shifts a year now lost to sick days, he said.
Near the end, Evans read what the study calls “a reasonable alternative to an immediate large-scale staffing increase.” It has three parts: keep or modestly strengthen minimum staffing, sign agreements for neighboring departments with paid firefighters to send crews automatically to fires at apartment, commercial, industrial and high-rise buildings, and put added staff into ambulance service and the busiest hours.
Evans began just after the sentence that precedes it in the study: “For Bethlehem, automatic aid should not be interpreted as a substitute for appropriate minimum staffing.” He did read the next line, that the approach also avoids leaning too heavily on outside help for routine emergencies.
‘In this fashion’
Daniels said she compared Evans’ slides with the report as he spoke. “I was finding a lot of discrepancies,” she said, adding that some might just be page numbers being off. She asked that council get a copy of the presentation to check against the study.
Daniels said she asked twice for the consultant, the Center for Public Safety Management, or CPSM, to present the study. The first request was turned down and the second got “zero response,” she said. Evans said he answered both.
“I can’t perform my duties as a council member with legislative oversight responsibilities, with checks and balance responsibilities when information is disseminated to us in this fashion,” Daniels said.
Reynolds said consultants hand their work to the administration to present, as with the city’s Opening Doors housing plan. The report’s author lives in Florida and doesn’t fly for health reasons, he said, but the city has no objection to a Zoom call with him.
Council President Rachel Leon said Daniels’ request came Oct. 14, four business days before the meeting, too late to arrange it. Committee Chair Justin Amann said council’s lawyer advised that council must vote to ask CPSM to appear, and invited Daniels to make that motion. No one made it at the council meeting that followed; council next meets Nov. 4.
The union’s response
Lou Jimenez, president of Bethlehem Firefighters IAFF Local 735, said “this was to be a fair presentation of a study” and that Evans “is not a fire service expert.” He said shifts haven’t had 24 people “in years,” called the focus on sick time “really getting old” and said calls fell because firefighters were taken off high-priority medical calls.
Budgeted positions are set in the budget, not at the bargaining table, Jimenez said. “Should minimum staffing depend only on negotiations or should it be addressed as a public safety issue?” he asked.
Fire Chief Matthew Griffin asked that the study not become “a political football” and said many recommendations must be negotiated in the firefighters’ contract. “We did not rush this study, and we will not rush the implementation of its recommendations,” he said.
