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Report: Closure of 20 Firehouses Will Require Massive Restructuring

By Heather Grossmann | February 1, 2010 5:31pm | Updated on February 1, 2010 5:39pm
FDNY truck.
FDNY truck.
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MANHATTAN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to close 20 fire houses for fiscal reasons will force a vast reorganization of the entire FDNY, the New York Times reported.

The FDNY has begun an extensive operations analysis to figure out the safest way to accomplish the closures and the result is expected to be similar is scope to the restructuring demanded by the 1970s financial crisis.

“If we have to close 20 companies, which is a 6 percent reduction in the number of companies we have, it is going to tax us,” Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano told the Times.

“It is certainly the most challenging thing we have faced in decades.”

The closures are part of several cost-savings plans in Bloomberg's Fiscal Year 2010-2011 budget, which also requires the elimination of over 800 NYPD jobs and a 50 percent reduction in teachers' raises.

An estimated 500 FDNY jobs of 8,500 will be lost if the 20 fire houses are closed, the Times reported.

Commissioner Cassano and his staff have been looking at data including the frequency of fires in certain neighborhoods and the response times of various fire houses in order to determine the best way to proceed, according to the Times.

The mayor's budget will undergo an extensive review by the City Council and other elected officials before it is approved.

In past years, cuts to the FDNY have been eliminated in the final rounds of budget negotiations, but because of the severity of the city's economic situation, it seems unlikely that the FDNY will emerge from this year's budget talks entirely unscathed.