It was the Monday morning of the Memorial Day weekend. At 8:00 am in Station 2 Lieutenant Chris Galliger noticed that Technician Sandy Bartle zoning out, with bloodshot eyes, wobbly stance, and an exhaled breath that might be flammable.

Dirt County is protected by six volunteer fire stations, with a small group of career staff working in the fire stations Monday – Friday from 8 am to 6 pm. Station 2 has a paid lieutenant and a technician that will staff either Engine 2 or Medic 2.  Technician Bartle’s condition helps explain the four borders of the emergency service supervisor’s playing field.

1) Fire Department Rules, Regulations, SOPs, Guidelines

This is the emergency service officer’s playing field border most familiar to new supervisors. This was a source of questions for their promotional exam or assessment center. Public safety is one of the largest municipal employee groups, developing their own regulations and procedures to reflect the unique aspects of the work and the requirements of 24-hour emergency service.

Dirt County has about 30 emergency service employees. The county procedure for an impaired employee instructs the supervisor to contact the on-duty emergency services administrative office and follow the county human resources procedure. The procedure is incomplete. There is no on-duty holiday emergency services administrative officer. The county is closed until Tuesday at 8 am.

2) Jurisdiction Human Resources Rules and Regulation

The county has a Human Resources Department that issues rules and regulations as well as providing a range of services. These include hiring, coordinating discipline, managing FMLA, disability, payroll, and retirement services.

This is the second most frequent border that the new supervisor interacts with. Here are areas that should be closely examined by the new supervisor:

• Employee behavior (coaching and discipline) process. There is a procedure, timeline, and forms used in awarding great performance, coaching for performance improvement and a process to correct performance deficits. This is where the impaired employee protocol exists.
  • Unfortunately, Dirt County is like many jurisdictions that seem to have a blind spot when it comes to employee behavioral issues that occur outside of the 9-5 weekday hours.
• Family Medical Leave Act. Employees with emergent, planned, or intermittent conditions need to follow a process that requires physician documentation.
• Grievance or problem-solving procedure. Supervisors are the first person an employee approaches to get a problem solved or a grievance addressed. There are forms and a timeline.
  • The “Impaired-on-Duty” policy was developed with guidance from human resources
• Code of Conduct. Either within the personnel regulations or as a stand-alone document, the jurisdiction has published a code of conduct describing their expectations of employee behavior.
  • If it is determined that Bartle was working in an impaired state, it is this section that describes the consequences.
• Payroll and leave balances.

Human resources also provide guidance for compliance with state and federal regulations. They provide the interface between the municipality and the regulators.

There often is a civil service board or commission that advises the jurisdiction and human services on personnel policies for merit-based employees. They also conduct the final level of employee grievance appeal hearings.

3) Labor Agreement

There are about 320,000 International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) members throughout North America. Many have a labor agreement, contract, or Memorandum of Understanding between the IAFF local and the municipality. In the 24 non-right-to-work states this includes binding arbitration. Some contracts are quite specific on staffing, deployment, firefighter workload, problem resolution, and tasks.

The new supervisor should be familiar with the provisions in the current labor contract that impact station-level activities. The shop steward within that station would be the first person to contact. A key resource for a new supervisor is the grievance coordinator. Learn the common mistakes made by a supervisor when responding to a Step 1 grievance.

4) Consent decrees, lawsuit settlements, and grievance resolutions

A consent decree is an agreement or settlement that resolves a dispute between two parties without admission of guilt (in a criminal case) or liability (in a civil case). Many emergency service agencies have been required to operate under federal consent decrees in response to discrimination or harassment lawsuits. The decree may have required a specific process in how candidates are hired, evaluated, trained, assigned, or promoted. They may be in force until an agreed-to milestone is met or the agency resolves an issue to the satisfaction of the court.

While a federal consent decree may be publicized, many municipal lawsuit settlements are sealed. The public will not see the results. The resolution of jurisdictional-level grievances is not publicized since they deal with personnel issues and discipline.

While not true in Dirt County’s example, the author encountered a unique impaired caregiver policy in an ambulance service that was the result of a wrongful termination lawsuit settlement. The former employee received a large settlement. The ambulance service now has a very detailed working while impaired policy.

Meanwhile at Station 2 …

Lieutenant Galliger notified dispatch that Station 2 was “driver only” and asked for the duty volunteer chief officer to call. The volunteer chief was sympathetic, supported the “driver only” status. He would try to get a volunteer to cover Bartle’s spot.

Galliger also contacted the off-duty county Operations Chief. The Ops Chief authorized keeping Bartle on duty but confined to the station until the chief arrived. The chief sent out an “overtime opportunity” notice to cover Bartle’s spot.

An hour later, Bartle is snoring in the dayroom and exuding a volatile odor. The training officer showed up to work the overtime.

The county Operations Chief arrives, in uniform. The chief meets with Bartle, explains that the technician appears impaired and unable to safely work. The chief is taking Bartle to the hospital emergency department for an assessment as required by the county.