Several residents expressed concerns to Hamilton City Council on Wednesday about recent brown-outs of the Shuler Avenue fire station since the new year started.

Brown-outs of two fire trucks were taken out of service a week ago as a result of budget cuts to balance the 2013 General Fund budget that was approved by council on Dec. 26. Tower 22 housed at Station 22 on Pershing Avenue and Quint 27 housed at Station 27 on Shuler Avenue were taken out of service. In 2011, the city paid more than $1 million in overtime pay to firefighters to keep a minimum of seven fire trucks and three EMS units in operation.

City Manager Joshua Smith said the city’s new baseline minimum is five fire trucks and three EMS units in operation. On Jan. 2, there were 10 firefighters off work due to vacation or sick leave, which also required browning out a station.

On May 5, when a federal SAFER grant expires, the Shuler Avenue fire station will be temporarily closed and the city will be laying off 18 firefighters because of budget cuts. However, the city is planning to house a fourth EMS unit at the Shuler Avenue fire station starting Jan. 1, 2014.

While city officials received good marks about communicating its plans after May 5, former fire chief Joe Schutte said many residents on Hamilton’s East Side didn’t understand that the Shuler Avenue station would be subject to rolling brownouts until May.

“People thought operations would remain the same (between Jan. 1 and May 5), but they weren’t,” Schutte said.

He added that he felt it was “wrong” and the city “was not transparent” with sharing this information with residents.

Another resident, Dan Hancock agreed with Schutte that better communication was needed from the city before the brownouts began because it made the city look “foolish” by parking fire trucks.

Fire Chief Steve Dawson told council that while the two fire trucks are out of service, the current minimum has been five fire trucks and three EMS units in operation. However, Dawson said due to some software issues with the 911 database system, the city has not been able to house an EMS unit at the Shuler Avenue station. On Wednesday night, there were two EMS units housed at the Pershing Avenue station.

He also said that every third day, the Shuler Avenue station would have an engine company on duty.

Dawson told the JournalNews last week that the rolling brownouts of certain engines or fire apparatus will be based on staffing levels each day. Dawson said each 24-hour shift typically includes 28 employees, but each shift has a varying number of vacancies based on sick leave or vacation time.

The Hamilton Fire Department responded to 12,201 incidents in 2012, according to officials. Smith said of those incidents, about 83 percent were for emergency medical reasons.

Smith said the closure of Station 27 is based on an efficiency study, and subsequent recommendations, from Berkshire Advisors Inc. He said the consultants analyzed every call within a 12-month span.

Smith believes he made it very clear that the fire chief had the authority to determine the best deployment of firefighters and fire apparatus and EMS units. However, Smith also said if the city is unable to maintain the current minimum baseline that overtime will be used to ensure that baseline. He also added there have been four EMS units in operation for most of the week and said that overtime was called in a few days ago.