Eight Lehigh Acres firefighters received letters Monday morning informing them that their last day would be by April 1st.
Even with the passage of the fire assessment fee, the Lehigh Acres Fire Department couldn’t afford to keep all of its employees.
Forty-six firefighters are funded by the Safer Grant, which expires next Friday. And even though the fire assessment fee passed, the department will not receive that money until December or January of 2016 — about a nine month gap.
A full staff in the district is 114 people. The cuts will bring them to 91. The department had many unfilled positions, retirements, resignations and now layoffs.
The resignations and retirements could save some of those layoffs. One was actually saved Tuesday – bringing the number to seven.
According to Chief Wayne layoffs will not affect response times. All trucks will stay on the road and all stations will remain open.
I guess the LA Gazette was right..I remember them stating before the election, where we voted on the fire assessment fee, that firement would be laid off..you were so right! Now the Chief says nothing will be affected by these layoffs where during the election he was saying just the opposite.
So what the chief is saying he does not need the people he laid off