(FARGO, ND) – The Fargo Fire Department’s 80 members were recently surveyed regarding the overall culture of the department.
The survey yielded concerns among several different aspects of the department.
When asked about job satisfaction, one firefighter said, “Being a firefighter is a very satisfying job. Making somebody’s worst day of their life better can be replicated. It is just very frustrating not being compensated the same as other firefighters in other cities who do the same job with less daily tasks.”
When it comes to work-life balance, one firefighter said, ‘A lot of the disruptions and sacrifices to that balance seemed to be completely overlooked by our city commission.’
Firefighters also expressed frustration with compensation.
“I feel that we should be compensated with average pay and benefits compared to the like city pay studies,” one wrote.
Another said, “We are way behind in pay and benefits, we keep losing people to other departments or other jobs and we keep replacing experienced people with new hires. The knowledge that is gained through experience can’t be taught in an academy. Eventually enough people will retire that have experience and the city will be left with a whole lot of people that have very little real-world knowledge, which will lead to someone getting hurt or killed.”
Voters approved a 20-year, quarter-cent sales tax for fire and police and their funding of operations, equipment and new buildings.
