Master Plan Nashua Fire Rescue, NH
4. Members very directly stated a desire for consistent accountability within Nashua Fire Rescue. They
went so far as to request that chief officers hold the members accountable from the top-down while
the union holds the members accountable from the bottom-up. There were repeated concerns
voiced that not everyone was being held equally accountable.
5. Training was repeatedly identified as one of the biggest weaknesses within Nashua Fire Rescue.
While this report includes 41 specific recommendations, the critical issues of morale, communication,
accountability, and firefighter training must be addressed before Nashua Fire Rescue will be capable of
working toward implementing any of the other recommendations in this report.
ESCI suggests that the most effective and immediate way to address these issues is to restructure the
Administrative Division to include an Assistant Chief of Uniform Professional Standards. This Assistant Chief
would report to the Chief of Department and be tasked with:
= Investigating all internal affairs type activities, thus removing this work from the Chief and
existing Assistant Chief. The single point of contact within the fire department as well as close
collaboration with Human Resources will better position Nashua Fire Rescue to address these types
of issues more consistently and to hold members accountable as appropriate.
= Develop and manage a communications plan for regular and consistent communications with
the Operations Division. Communication has been a critical weakness within Nashua Fire Rescue for
decades that is getting progressively worse. This problem will continue to fester, thus further
negatively impacting morale and the operations of the fire department until such a time that there
are focused resources dedicated to improving this deficiency.
« Manage the recruitment of new firefighters, thus removing this work from the Training and
Safety Division. Training was repeatedly identified as a major weakness within Nashua Fire Rescue.
The reassignment of recruitment duties to the Assistant Chief of Uniform Professional Standards will
allow the Training and Safety Division to focus their efforts on improving the Nashua Fire Rescue
Training Program.
= Oversight of the Nashua Fire Rescue Training Program. As previously noted, training was
repeatedly identified as a major weakness within Nashua Fire Rescue. Placing the Training Safety
Division under the direction of the Assistant Chief of Uniform Professional Standards will provide the
oversight that is necessary to establish and then achieve simple, manageable, achievable,
reasonable, and timely (SMART) goals to systematically improve the Nashua Fire Rescue Training
Program.
» Manage the promotion process in conjunction with Human Resources. ESCI recommended within
the Promotions Processes Section of this report that Nashua Fire Rescue re-evaluate the merits of
including the civilian Board of Fire Commissioners within the promotional process. It is ESCI'’s
suggestion that Nashua Fire Rescue may be able to improve the current promotional process by
allowing the professional human resources and fire department personnel to conduct the entire
process, thereby eliminating the potential political influence that could be introduced by the
inclusion of the elected board. The Assistant Chief of Uniform Professional Standards would be well-
positioned to facilitate this process on behalf of the fire department.
fj Emergency Services
ESC) Consulting International 2
