Falls Police Chief Also Will Oversee Fire Department Under Restructuring

Under a new leadership arrangement in the village, Menomonee Falls Police Chief Anna Ruzinksi will soon technically be Fire Chief Jeffrey Hevey’s boss

Village leaders agreed to alter the leadership structure Monday in the police and fire departments by creating a new consolidated Protective Services Department.

This issue hadn't been discussed in public at Village Board meetings until Monday. And some Falls firefighters aren't too happy about the change — or the haste in which it was approved.

Under this arrangement, police and fire services would be divisions of the new Protective Services Department, with Ruzinksi as its director. Hevey will remain in his post as fire chief, and will continue to run day-to-day operations.

“We have no interest in proceeding with a department where we merge jobs of firefighters and police officers,” Village Manager Mark Fitzgerald emphasized.

The purpose of the arrangement isn’t for police officers to start sharing the duties of firefighters or vice versa. Rather, each division would keep its autonomy, but share resources where the benefits are mutual.

“The objective going in is to allow for some additional administrative resources flow,” Fitzgerald said. “It will change the dynamic, but for the better. Both chiefs will be working together and that will fundamentally be a good system for both chiefs to gain the maximum from each other.”

Fitzgerald said areas like command and control functions, personnel and organizational structures are areas where Ruzinksi may find synergies and efficiencies. He said downsizing and cutbacks weren’t part of discussions. Cost savings weren’t a driver for crafting the new arrangement, either.

He added that the goals of the new department are intentionally vague, and the benefits will be realized through time.

“It may leave a little bit of discomfort for people since we don’t have fully charted course,” Fitzgerald said. “If we had a real precise agenda, we may miss opportunities. We want to accomplish synergies and efficiencies wherever we can find them rather than a preset approach. We are going to be taking our time with this.”

Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011-13 budget bill gave local governments the ability to create a consolidated protective services department. The Menomonee Falls Fire Department is a hybrid mix of full-time, part-time, and paid-on-call members. Fitzgerald said the new organizational structure would help the village maintain that hybrid model for fire services.

The Falls Police and Fire Commission unanimously voted on Tuesday to appoint Ruzinksi to the position. Fitzgerald said they had not determined what the new position would mean in terms of a bump in pay.

But some members of the fire department are concerned about the manner in which the village voted on the ordinance to create the new department. According to a Falls fire fighter, they were only given a week of notice that the ordinance would change.

Roughly 10 other firefighters were present at the meeting Monday.

“We have been told there will be no changes in the day-to-day operations, but I have a hard time believing that based on how this was handled,” one firefighter who wished to remain anonymous said in an e-mail to Patch. “There was no notice to the fire department or its membership.”

During the meeting, Falls resident Ron Straus asked the board to slow the approval process, according to an article from TMJ4.

The proposed ordinance change did not appear on previous agendas until Feb. 20, which was the day the board voted on the ordinance.

Hevey couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the new structure.