Budget Cuts Will Mean Reduced FDNY Staffing In Bed-Stuy: Firefighters

BED-STUY, NY — Citywide budget cuts will mean pulling a firefighter from multiple FDNY engine companies, including one in Bed-Stuy, the Uniformed Firefighters Association announced Saturday.

The FDNY will reduce some 20 engine companies across the city by 20 percent, temporarily removing a fifth firefighter from each company, the association said in a Tweet.

"This can be the difference between life and death," said Andrew Ansbro, President of the association.

The move could mean a difference of minutes in FDNY response times, according to Ansbro.

"This reduction of staffing will make it more difficult to fight fires in those effected neighborhoods," the association said.

"Studies have shown that having that additional [firefighter] can cut in half the time it takes to put water on a fire. During a fire, saving seconds save lives, and losing time costs lives."

A City Hall Spokesperson told Patch the additional firefighter is contingent on medical leave numbers — once medical leave usage falls below a threshold settled in the city's contract with the union, the fifth firefighter will be restored, the spokesperson said.

"The mayor has been clear that he will never do anything to put public safety at risk, and this temporary change, representing a small fraction of our engine companies, will not affect response times whatsoever or derail the FDNY from this mission to respond quickly to fires," the City Hall Spokesperson told Patch.

The union voted in its last contract to allow such a staffing adjustment if necessary, ABC7 reported.

But the move comes at a particularly bad time given fires always increase in December and will continue to increase into the spring, Ansbro said in a news conference.

FDNY Commissioner Laura Cavanagh told ABC7 she doesn't believe the cut will put communities at higher risk.

Additional budget cuts hit city agencies hard in mid-November — for the FDNY, a revised city budget will mean a $74 million trim in Fiscal Year 2024 and $104 million in 2025, according to Eric Adams' budget office.

In 2022, Bed-Stuy led Brooklyn with the highest number of fire-related deaths in the borough — eight.

The average response time of fire companies to all emergencies increased by seven seconds in the Fiscal Year 2023, according to a city report. Ambulance and fire company response time to life-threatening medical emergencies also increased in 2023.