After 18 years as Tisbury fire chief, John Schilling will retire at the end of June.
No decision has been made yet on who will replace him, but his departure is reflected in the 2020-2021 fire department budget Mr. Schilling presented to selectmen Tuesday night.
“Overall, you have a $35,000 reduction in the fire chief’s salary line item,” he told the selectmen.
Mr. Schilling, who will reach the mandatory retirement age of 65 in July, leaves his job at the top of the town pay scale, salary step 10, while a new fire chief hired from outside the department would begin employment at step one, he explained.
The chief is paid an annual salary of $132,000.
The new fire department budget also includes more money for training the new brass at off-Island conferences, such as the three-day Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts professional development conference in Worcester next month.
“It’s important that both senior officers be at something like that for their professional growth and development,” Chief Schilling said.
To keep the firefighting force at strength during their absence, Mr. Schilling said the new budget doubles the funding for shift coverage from six days to 12.
The town will also need to pay for a cell phone for the new fire chief once Mr. Schilling has retired. He’s been using his personal mobile phone, he said.
Volunteer firefighters will see a slight uptick in their twice-a-year stipends under Mr. Schilling’s budget, which includes their first cost-of-living increase in three years and proposes to round out the payments.
“We don’t want it to be some bizarre (number like) $469.95. Those numbers get rounded up,” he said.
Expected savings have not yet materialized from solar panels at the town emergency services building, Mr. Schilling said.
“We still are receiving full billing from Eversource,” he told selectmen. “We’ve had no communication from anyone involved in this project . . . We’ve been told that the meter’s supposed to be spinning backwards.”
Mr. Schilling also wants the town to support more janitorial services for the building, which were stripped out of the current budget to provide additional funding for department operations.
“It’s not working,” he said, “The floors haven’t been touched in two years, Supposedly, we can’t get a vendor. The training room floor is taking quite a beating.”
Even everyday cleaning products are lacking at the firehouse, Mr. Schilling said: “We have people bringing cleaning supplies from home.”
His budget presentation was one in a series that selectmen are receiving from town department heads in preparation for the April annual town meeting.
A joint meeting of the selectmen and the town finance committee is planned for Feb. 4.
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