Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose told the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Board at their meeting Tuesday that they were being reappointed for 2025.
“I’m looking forward to another very good year for the fire department under Chief (Joel) Shilling’s leadership,” Grose said to the board members present.
At the Jan. 7 meeting, all of them will be given the oath of office.
The board unanimously approved their reappointments for another year.
Each year, the board has to approve an agreement with the fire chief for him to serve as chief for another year. As mayor, Grose said he highly recommended the board approve Shilling’s appointment to continue serving the citizens of the entire territory.
Asked by Grose how many people he now has on staff, Shilling reported there are 37 full-time firefighters, the fire marshal, CARES staff and office staff, as well as all the part-timers, so about 47-48.
“It’s an honor to serve them,” Shilling said.
The board unanimously approved for Shilling to continue to serve as chief in 2025.
Shilling also provided the board with the monthly fire activity report.
For October, he said the fire territory had 345 responses. Of those, 93 incidents (27%) were overlapping. Typically, he said, the percentage of overlapping calls is in the 30s so he was happy to see it in the 20s for the month.
They had 17 fire calls during the month. WWFT assisted Leesburg Fire once, Burket Fire four times and Winona Lake once. Warsaw received assistance from Winona Lake twice, Leesburg once and Claypool and Burket fire departments once.
Rescue and/or EMS calls totaled 198. There were a total of 16 hazardous conditions with no fires that WWFT responded to in October; 13 service-type calls; 37 good intent calls; and 24 total false alarms or calls. Special type of incidents totaled 40.
All totaled, district totals for station 17 were 157; 107 for station 13; 45 for station 15; and 36 for CARES.
The department trained for 502 hours in October on such things as EMT skills, tower operations, live fire burns and other areas.
“We also had some community service hours. Now is the time where we’re starting to pick up on our school programs in partnership with Warsaw Community Schools. This year we also added, and are happy to have added, both Sacred Heart and Lakeland to our K through 6 programs,” Shilling said, noting the fire territory had 24.5 hours of community service in October.
Asked by Councilman Mike Klondaris about staffing at the fire territory, Shilling said they now are at full staff that they’re allowed. With the increase in the levy in 2025, they will be adding two more firefighters to give them 13 per shift.
“We do have two offers out to two individuals,” Shilling said, but they have to go through the process and would make great additions to the department. “I’m very excited about that.”
Concluding the meeting, Shilling updated the board on the merit board system vote taken by eligible full-time 77 Fund firefighters.
He said Monday morning the membership vote was held as required by Indiana code. From that, 31 agreed to reject the merit board system and five voted in favor to have the merit system.
“With that vote, it was determined that we were going to reject the merit system by the membership. So we will not have the merit system and will remain with the Board of Public Works and Safety as our board that we go to for approvals for promotions, hiring, disciplinary and that sort of thing,” Shilling said.
The merit board system can’t be voted on again for at least 12 months.
In prior other meetings, the Warsaw Common Council, the Board of Public Works and Safety and the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Board all approved resolutions rejecting the merit board system for the fire department. The firefighters on Monday were the last body to vote on the matter, but had they voted in favor of the merit board system, there would be one regardless of the other votes.
In 2023, the Indiana House passed House Enrolled Act 1016, which was signed into law May 4, 2023. By the law, any department that has 12 members and serves a population of 20,000 is mandated to have a merit board unless a resolution is approved rejecting the merit board. If any of the involved parties decides to have a merit board, then the merit board has to be put into place.