Fire prevention specialist would cover similar responsibilities as fire marshal

To help ease the responsibilities of some of the administrative staff at the Newton Fire Department, the city wants to create a fire prevention specialist position sometime within the next few years. The city council agree with the idea and made it one of their goals for 2022-2024.

In addition to the new position, council members want to increase the pay of fire captains to incentivize advancement for employees in the station. Newton City Administrator Matt Muckler said the new position and increase in captain pay would cost about $163,205 every year.

The fire prevention specialist position will cover several duties at the Newton Fire Department, such as fire investigations, educational efforts, fire safety of new buildings or developments, the commercial inspection program and the mobile food vendor program, among other things.

Many of these duties were covered by the fire marshal in the past. Following the retirement of fire marshal Mike Knoll in 2019, the city dissolved the position and separated the duties amongst the fire chief and assistant fire chief. Muckler said the city scaled back so much to the point where it couldn’t function.

“There are certainly similar duties,” Muckler said. “One important piece the fire marshal position handled but this position would not would be the residential rental inspection program. That will stay over with the community development department. We’re not going to change that. The commercial side will stay.”

Muckler envisions the fire prevention specialist would also provide some kind of safety outreach. Paramedics often respond to elderly citizens falling in their homes. The city administrator said a program could be created to educate folks and maybe create safer environments for people.

“A lot of proactive safety things that will help community members that we’re not able to do because we just don’t have the capacity to do that,” Muckler said.

Currently the fire station has three captains, which are in charge of the crews 24 hours a day. The fire chief, assistant fire chief and administrative staff work Monday through Friday on a standard schedule. Outside of those hours, a captain is in command of the fire department.

“We’re getting closer between a firefighter that’s at the top end of the firefighter (pay) scale and a captain — that gap is kind of narrow,” Muckler said in an interview with Newton News. “We want to encourage our firefighters to look at that captain position as something they can attain.”

The captains right now are only making a few dollars more than the firefighters they are supervising. More responsibility is required of a captain and the city wants to retain those people. Muckler said a pay raise is a way the city can give them incentive to take on those positions.

“We want to create career ladders for all our employees,” he said. “If you’re a new paramedic you can look ahead and say, ‘Well maybe one day I can be an acting captain.’ Then captain, then assistant chief, then chief. You got kind of a career ladder that you can kind of obtain and can be attractive for those people.”