A special Saturday Butler City Council meeting saw the council members accept a grant to add personnel to the fire department and apply for a grant for new equipment in the department.

The acceptance of a $622,500 Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant was approved 4-1, with Councilman Mike Walter casting the dissenting vote.

The grant will pay for the addition of four full-time firefighters at the department who would work as contracted employees for three years.

The city must pay $238,623 in matching funds in accepting the grant, which Councilman Ken Bonus said would be paid in increments.

He said the city would pay $51,875 in years one and two, and $134,875 in the third year of the grant.

Walter questioned whether the city needs a 20-person fire department, especially with a police department that has decreased its staff.

“We're running minimum staff on every other department,” Walter said.

He said he worries that other departments in the city are working under concessionary contracts while employees are being added at the fire department.

“That's going to go over like a lead balloon,” Walter said.

But Councilman Corey Roche explained that the measure will actually result in a cost savings for the city, as adding the four new positions will decrease the significant overtime incurred by the fire department in the last year.

“There's overtime on almost every shift,” Roche said.

The overtime is incurred because injuries, illness and retirements have put a strain on the fire department's roster, he said.

Roche said overtime costs would drop $20,000 to $60,000 per year with the hiring of the new firefighters.

Bonus added that the city is required by state law to have four firefighters working each shift.

“The other departments don't have that requirement that we have to abide by,” Bonus said.

The council will decide at the end of the three-year contract whether to hire the firefighters as regular employees.

Walter also asked if the new firefighters will be members of the union, which would mean the city might be required to contribute to their pension funds.

Roche replied that they would not be union members during the three contract years and would not receive pension contributions.

The second action taken by the council was to apply for a Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency grant to update the computer system and Wi-Fi and buy a new printer for the fire department.

The new items would make the department's equipment compatible with its new software.

There would be no matching funds required if the city receives the $8,700 grant.