Trotwood Fire Department to lose 5 grant-funded firefighter positions

The city applied for and received the three-year grant in 2021. After the expiration of the grant earlier this year, the city continued to pay to keep the five additional positions filled through 2025.

“When the SAFER grant ended (in) February, the city of Trotwood voluntarily absorbed the cost through the 2025 budget, even though it was not required to do so,” the city said in a press release on the issue. “This was done to allow time to explore every potential option, including grant extension requests and other funding pathways.”

According to city officials, FEMA made changes to the SAFER grant’s retention guidelines, which left Trotwood “ineligible for renewal.”

The five grant-funded positions were “never permanent and were always understood to expire when federal funding ended,” the city stressed in the release.

“These are temporary grant positions, not reductions to permanent staffing,” the city said in the release. “All full-time positions protected under the collective bargaining agreement remain in place.”

But representatives of the Trotwood Firefighters IAFF Local 4024, the union that represents the department’s firefighters, said they were told otherwise.

“We were told last year, when (the city) didn’t get the SAFER renewal grant, that these guys were going to be safe and taken care of,” union president Seth Haley said during an interview on the Firefighter Nation podcast earlier this month.

The union said 2025 has been the busiest year in Trotwood Fire Department history, with more than 8,000 calls for service, and that losing five positions will be dangerous.

“These cuts will increase response times, reduce staffing on emergency scenes, and put both citizens and firefighters at risk,” a post on the Local 4024 Facebook page reads. “Public safety should never be on the chopping block.”

But city leaders assure services will not be affected.

“Operational coverage remains intact, and the fire department continues to meet established response standards,” the release states. The elimination of temporary grant-funded positions does not reduce the number of permanent firefighters serving the community."