Workshop details need for more police and fire

The Norwood Board of Selectmen met with the department heads and staff of the Norwood Fire Department and Norwood Police Department last week on Jan. 20 for what was called a Public Safety Workshop.

The intent of the meeting was to brief the Board on more details around the need for more firefighters, paramedics and police in Town as part of or in addition to a possible operational budget override this spring or next.

An operational override is when a municipality asks voters to increase their own property taxes over the 2.5 percent levy limit to which Massachusetts Prop 2 ½ currently restricts local governments. This is not the first time the Town has been considering an operational override – and certainly not the first time this particular one has been discussed – but it’s looking more and more likely to come up, either next fiscal year FY28 or FY29.

However, he said he believes the Town can split this for a separate override to come about sooner rather than later.

“The two overrides, I think, make sense,” he said. “I know it’s a lot, but start small. We need the staff now, rather than later. I don’t think we can go back if a larger operational override were not to pass, and we’re planning on, not this coming fiscal year but the next one, needing an operational override. If we have sufficient revenues or significant new growth, we may kick that out an additional year. Therefore do we wait wait and wait? What if we kick out that operational override another two more years? Are we just going to continue to wait until that happens?”

Mazzucco said he does not believe the Town can afford that. He said while there are a number of factors for the override for public safety, the biggest is the recent increase in call volume, both for police and fire respectively.

“If call volume was where it was 15 years ago, I don’t know if we would be having this discussion, but our call volume has just increased dramatically and I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon,” he said.

For the two departments, more personnel are needed, and representatives from both departments said increases in call volumes and required training are the primary factors. Firefighter Paul Ronco – who is supposedly retiring – pointed out that the department has had the same level of staffing for the last 50 years, despite taking on EMS services in that time.

Town Manager Tony Mazzucco pointed to the fact that Norwood also has increased fire risks compared to other similarly sized municipalities. He said the fact that there is the “Automile” and still a significant amount of manufacturing and industrial usage means that fire risk in general is higher.

And while most readers might be aware that ambulance runs are much longer since the hospital closed down five years ago, Mazzucco brought it up anyway. Not only are staff being made to go out for longer periods of time and equipment is being run ragged, but forced overtime – that’s overtime that’s required because not enough firefighters or paramedics are available – is also increasing the costs of service overall.

Mazzucco also pointed out that Fire and Police are currently understaffed under suggested regulations, according to the National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) for the NFD and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the NPD. He said for the NFD, the recommendation is to have a minimum of 18 personnel on duty at any given time, resulting in an increase from 60 now to around 74 proposed. For the NPD, Mazzucco said the recommendation is to have 2.4 officers per 1,000 residents, which works out to about nine new officers. But he said they are proposing six, for 2.1 officers per 1,000 residents.

“We’ve historically been below that (2.4 officers) or slightly below that andd our proposal would catch us up to just below that,” he said. “If you take into account our higher risk profile, Norwood has always been focused on ‘nothing more, nothing less’ to where we need to be.”

For fire personnel, it’s a little more complicated. Mazzucco said they need to make personnel available for training – which is currently at one day of training every quarter – and that leads to fewer available firefighters – they can’t go out on calls while training – and increased overtime to cover shifts.

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Mazzucco said also that mutual aid cannot cover these issues, as it is not for immediate response. He said currently, the NFD aims to have an overall response time of eight minutes for each emergency call. If you’re coming from out of Town, he said that’s functionally impossible.

“That’s not happening,” he said.

For the total cost of adding six police officers and 14 fire staff in the operational override, Mazzucco said it would come to $1.8 million This increase would result in a $142 annual property tax increase for an average home in Norwood, assessed at $750,000.

Now comes the issue of timing. Mazzucco said if the Town wants to pull the trigger on starting the public safety override process for the next fiscal year, FY27, they would need to get their ducks in a row relatively soon. He said they would need to have it finalized by the Feb. 24 Board of Selectmen meeting where the Town Meeting Warraant would be voted on, and then they would have to host public information sessions in March and April to get residents up to speed, followed by a May 11 Town Meeting Vote and ballot vote on June 9.

Mazzucco said there are one-time costs also in the mix here for just under $200,000, that would be contingent on the override passing, if Town Meeting votes to approve it.

The last time the Town voted for an operational override was June of 2019, and it passed 5,622 to 1,821.