Wong and Kristoff discuss FDNY headcount gap and ambulance fleet
Councilmember Wong asks about the headcount gap, with Kristoff reporting 706 total positions under budget: 316 uniform, 290 EMS, 100 civilian. Wong also asks about the 30% ambulance out-of-service rate, with Miano explaining the 600-ambulance fleet supports 340 active units with spares.
Councilmember Wong, followed by Councilmember Palladino.
Okay, thank you, Chairs.
I read the testimony here that the headcount is under budgeted by 190 people.
My question is, how many of them are EMS positions?
And what does the FY27 budget doing to close that gap?
So overall, the department is under budgeted headcount total agency by 706 positions.
316 of that is on the uniform side, driven by firefighters and lieutenants.
290 of that is EMS, and about 100 of that is civilian, largely because we just got positions added.
So on the EMS side, unfortunately, because of the ongoing promotions to firefighter, although we are trying to staff up as much as possible and are aiming to hire large classes and continue
to recruit folks to fill those vacancies, we do anticipate that it will take us quite some time to achieve budgeted headcount.
Okay, thank you.
Regarding 600 ambulances in the field with 30% of them out of service,
That is a very high number.
Can you talk about what's being done?
What's going on?
You're waiting for parts?
Is it a budget problem?
That's 180 ambulances out of 600.
That's out of service.
So the maximum amount of ambulances that we have in the field at any given time during the two tours that we run during the day is 340.
That is distributed throughout the city.
Although we have a fleet of 600, that's in case any ambulances like the ones that are off service.
are off service, we can replace those ambulances with spares.
I see.
Okay, thank you.