Johnston Fire Department

JOHNSTON FIRE DEPARTMENT STREAMLINES PAYROLL, SAVING TIME AND MONEY WITH FIREHOUSE247

The city of Johnston, RI was incorporated in 1759 and went without its own fire protection for over 130 years until in 1891 when Johnston’s first fire station, the “Rough and Ready Station” opened. Johnston didn’t hire its first full time firefighter until 1967. Now Johnston Fire Department has nearly 100 full time firefighters across 4 stations, including its own EMS, collectively responding to over 8,000 incidents per year.

With 26 lists and 38 rules to follow, callbacks required a Battalion Chief to physically make an average of 140 calls per day and upwards of 300 calls on a busy day, in order to fill shifts. This consumed several hours at the beginning of each shift change and often resulted in holding over firefighters if this process was interrupted by an incident call. Furthermore, if the list was not called down in the correct order, conflicts among firefighters regarding who got the overtime shift would result. While Johnston knew they had to address these challenges, the payroll process was also fraught with challenges. Every Friday the department’s administrative assistant would have to cross reference multiple resources to manually produce a report to send to the town office. As such, payroll errors were commonplace and would result in adjusted pay the following week for firefighters. This put unwanted stress on everyone involved.

Johnston Fire Department conducted a quick search of options and brought Firehouse247 in for a demo. With Johnston’s unique set of rules and policies, Firehouse247 was quickly identified as the only solution that could address all their needs.

The Firehouse247 scheduling, shift filling, and work management solution was the only system on the market able to accommodate their complex rules and lists while also completely eliminating payroll errors, allowing valuable human resources to be reallocated to more important department duties and improving morale.

Solution

Outcome

“While not even the primary reason for bringing on Firehouse247, as we had a huge callback problem to address, the robust payroll reporting to track pay, overtime, accruals and more completely eliminated costly payroll errors which made everyone from the firefighters all the way to the Chief extremely happy” - BC Moroni

On top of the 140 manual calls per day across 38 filling rules from the 26 different lists, dozens of payroll issues were present week after week, requiring constant monitoring and rectification, draining time and resources, as well as frustrating everyone involved.

Challenge

Battalion Chief Moroni recalls, “Calling down the lists each day was a huge burden each day and sometimes firefighters would be called down out of order, annoying firefighters that got skipped by mistake. We were eager to figure out a better way to make this faster and less error prone,” states BC Moroni. “We were so determined to fix callbacks, completely solving our payroll issues blew us away and was a huge bonus,” recalls BC Moroni.

ELIMINATING COSTLY PAYROLL ERRORS

“Every week there were a handful of payroll issues that would need to be adjusted for the next tour.” says Assistant Chief Boehm. “It was a nightmare and completely frustrated the firefighters because it’s messing with their pay.” Chief Boehm continues, “While not even the primary reason for bringing on Firehouse247, we had a huge callback problem to address. The robust payroll reporting to track pay, overtime, accruals and more completely eliminated costly payroll errors which made everyone from the firefighters all the way to the Chief extremely happy.” “Firefighters can also easily keep track of their available vacation time, instead of calling their BC or the admin every time they had a question,” states Chief Boehm

With the Firehouse247 solution, Brockton Fire Department was able to:

Eliminate payroll errors: “This removed one of the biggest stressors for everyone involved and now have complete confidence in the accuracy of payroll each week,” says Chief Boehm

Completely streamline callbacks: “No more making between 140-300 calls per day across 43 lists to fill shifts, saving hours each day,” says BC Moroni. “The automated shift filling feature is stupid simple and can’t believe we survived this long without it.”

Enable firefighters to manage PTO: “Firefighters love that they can now view and manage their time off all from their phone,” says BC Moroni. “They can see how much vacation time they have accrued and with a single click request time off.”

About Firehouse247

Built by firefighters, for firefighters. With first-hand experience of the biggest administrative challenges facing Fire Departments today, Firehouse247 delivers a comprehensive solution that focuses on ease of use to make daily administrative tasks simple and immediate. Issues with scheduling, shift filling and payroll are now a thing of the past.

Fill overtime shifts, details and callbacks automatically whilst adhering to your unique department policies and union rules. Easy integration with your existing systems for CAD, RMS (inspections, pre-planning, inventory, training, etc.) NFIRS, payroll and dashboarding. First-class customer service experience from the Firehouse247 team.

Johnston Fire Department

On top of the 140 manual calls per day across 38 filling rules from the 26 different lists, dozens of payroll issues were present week after week, requiring constant monitoring and rectification, draining time and resources, as well as frustrating everyone involved.

With the Firehouse247 solution, Brockton Fire Department was able to:

​

Eliminate payroll errors: “This removed one of the biggest stressors for everyone involved and now have complete confidence in the accuracy of payroll each week,” says Chief Boehm

​

Completely streamline callbacks: “No more making between 140-300 calls per day across 43 lists to fill shifts, saving hours each day,” says BC Moroni. “The automated shift filling feature is stupid simple and can’t believe we survived this long without it.”

​

Enable firefighters to manage PTO: “Firefighters love that they can now view and manage their time off all from their phone,” says BC Moroni. “They can see how much vacation time they have accrued and with a single click request time off.”