This afternoon Chief Brian Marshall held a press conference regarding the potential staff cuts at stations across the county, brought in part by the Kern County Board of Supervisors.
"We're looking at all of the issues with reducing staffing at fire stations and making sure the board of supervisors are aware of any potential issues that may occur with a reduction in staffing at nine fire stations."
No firefighters will lose their job, but they are being shifted to different stations.
Something Marshall says will help the department save two-million-dollars.
"Right now the fire department is facing a 17-million-dollar budget shortfall and this is the prior fiscal year, our current fiscal year. We have reduced some firefighter staffing where we've eliminated extra firefighters that we have through our training process, we've eliminated some staff positions, we're not buying fire apparatus, so we're trying to conserve all of our financial resources to make sure that we're able to answer the call."
The move would also potentially leave outlying fire stations with only two firefighters per shift, possibly causing possibly causing problems for firefighters during dangerous situations.
