Polk Fire battalion chief gets job back as county hires firm to assess agency management

A beleaguered Polk County battalion chief got his job back not long after the Polk County Commission agreed a consultant needs to be brought in to assess the management of its fire and rescue agency.

Fired Polk County Fire Rescue battalion chief Charlie True has been back on the job for more than two weeks, according to Jon Hall, vice president of the Polk Professional Firefighters union.

And a majority of the Polk County commissioners have agreed on a resolution to hire Allen, Norton and Blue of Tallahassee to examine the circumstances behind the termination and get to the root cause of the leadership problems that have plagued the agency for years.

The firing of True followed a dispute with agency management over hours that were logged by crews during a disaster-relief response in Levy County to support residents impacted in August by Hurricane Idalia.

Hall previously told The Ledger the issue revolved around hours worked vs. hours the PCFR personnel were told to work by its administration. The firefighters and EMTs were about to be deployed for disaster-relief duties when an administrative chief told True verbally to keep the first responders to 12-hour shifts instead of the typical 24-hour shifts they work in Polk County.

The deployment was to protect Polk County Sheriff’s Office deputies from potential threats of fire and possible medical emergencies in the disaster zone, which takes pressure off local first responders. The deputies assisted in evacuations, retrieved people from their homes and placed them into shelters, cut up fallen trees, and assisted in other recovery efforts, Hall said. The PCFR assisted in those efforts as well as their main mission to support the sheriff's personnel.

The county had told Hall that it had paid fire and rescue responders an unexpected $60,000 toward the deployment in Levy County. But he was puzzled by the calculation. Health insurance and other benefits would have had to be paid regardless of the deployment, and a firefighter's wage is not exorbitant.

The hiring of the consultant came at the behest of board Chairman Bill Braswell who had lashed out at County Manager Bill Beasley the week after True’s firing.

Braswell says he’s received more than 350 emails about the county’s fire agency since joining the commission, and then there was the backlash and a social media campaign by Polk County residents against the removal of the battalion chief.

The board had originally discussed next steps, and the firefighters’ union had appealed the firing during the Jan. 9 commissioners meeting.

According to a text on Thursday from Braswell, “The law firm that is going to conduct the review has been determined, but they have yet to begin the actual departmental review.

“They should start in the next few weeks, and we have given them 90 days to complete the process and produce a report,” he said.

Meanwhile, True returned to work on Feb. 1, according to Hall in a text message on Thursday.

“They reduced his discipline and put him back to work,” he said.

Braswell had called for further investigation by an independent third party into the county’s fire service and directed his frustration about the agency’s management at Beasley, saying the county’s top administrators were part of the problem.

“I do think we have a problem,” he said at the Jan. 9 meeting. “I think we have a management problem in our fire department and Mr. Beasley, that starts with you.

“I've been here seven years, and I have watched problem after problem come out of our fire department,” Braswell said. “It was easy to say it was rank and file for a long time, but the fact remains we still have problems.”

The hiring of a consultant was discussed again at the commissioners’ agenda review on Jan. 22 at the County Administration Building in Bartow.

Solar boom: Polk County among Florida's hotbeds for utility-scale solar power plants

At the agenda review streamed on Polk TV, Braswell said he would be the “point man” on the development of the audit report. He told the county administrators at the meeting and fellow board members he had received a list of qualified law firms from the Florida Association of Counties and visited at least one of the law firms while in Tallahassee.

“They understand the IG (inspector general) concept of looking at management from the top down, the bottom up, whatever you want to call it, finding what we do right, what we do wrong and fixing any problems that they find,” Braswell said.

He told the board he wanted this to be monitored by his colleagues on the commission and not to be monitored by staff or administration.

A resolution to deviate from the usual county procurement process was written by County Attorney Randy Mink to allow the board chairman to hire the firm that will conduct the audit.

The resolution was approved by the commission at its regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 23 in Bartow. Commissioner George Lindsey was the lone vote against the procurement resolution.

Mink wrote in the resolution that procurement normally falls under the county manager and the action by the board allows it “to deviate from an RFP (request for proposals) and selection committee. He (Braswell) said this is only an inquiry and gathering information to report back to the Board and this is not interfering with the duties of employees that fall under the County Manager.”

Braswell had spoken to three firms and selected Allen, Norton and Blue, which has had experience auditing fire service agencies.

Hall said that the reinstatement of True as battalion chief also came with a reduction of the disciplinary actions against him.

A request on Friday by The Ledger for the recent changes to True’s employment and discipline records with Polk County is still pending. A request for the contract with Alan, Norton and Blue is also pending.

A county spokeswoman had said True was terminated on Jan. 5 for failure to supervise, insubordination and untruthfulness. His annual salary was $93,708 in January.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Battalion chief gets his job back as Polk County assesses fire agency