From the Town Administrator's FY 2027 Budget narrative, each department's story is worth sharing.
General Purpose
The Franklin Fire Department is committed to providing the highest level of public safety services for our community. We safely protect lives and property through fire suppression, training, emergency medical and transportation services, disaster and crisis management, fire prevention, and public education.
Core Functions
● Initiate advanced life support to patients within eight minutes of receiving the telephone call at the communications center.
● Access, extricate, treat, and transport trauma patients to a Level I trauma medical facility within one hour of injury occurrence.
● Interrupt the progression of structure fires within eight minutes of receiving the telephone call at the communications center.
● Investigate and implement strategies to improve response times in targeted areas of the Town.
● Teach fire and life safety skills to all students in grades K through 5, consistent with the Student Awareness of Fire Education (SAFE) initiative of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
● Provide continued services to the senior population, including home safety inspections, smoke and carbon monoxide detector battery replacement, and community outreach programs such as the annual St. Patrick’s Day corned beef dinner at the senior center.
● Promote fire prevention and safety through timely and consistent code compliance services.
● Provide ongoing educational and professional development opportunities for department members to ensure optimal performance and safety.
● Develop and maintain best practices to ensure personnel and resident safety.
Staffing
● One (1) Fire Department Chief
● One (1) Deputy Chief of Operations
● One (1) Deputy Chief of Administration and Community Risk Reduction
● Four (4) Battalion Chiefs
● Four (4) Captains
● Four (4) Lieutenants
● One (1) EMS Battalion Chief
● One (1) EMS Captain
● Forty Four (44) Firefighters/ Paramedics
● One (1) Executive Assistant
Strategic Initiatives & Accomplishments
● Since 2020, the Franklin Fire Department has implemented significant structural reforms designed to improve firefighter safety, enhance operational efficiency, control long-term costs, and maximize value to the community. These changes were deliberate organizational adjustments that modernized the Department and aligned staffing with evolving service demand.
● In July 2020, the Department transitioned away from Civil Service, significantly reducing hiring timelines and improving the Town’s ability to fill vacancies efficiently. Faster hiring has minimized overtime exposure associated with prolonged vacancies and improved workforce stability. The ability to recruit qualified firefighter/paramedics in a timely manner is a measurable operational efficiency that reduces unnecessary personnel costs while maintaining service delivery standards.
● As part of that reorganization, the Department reclassified positions and established Battalion Chief roles that previously did not exist. Prior to this change, the Department did not have dedicated incident commanders assigned to oversee complex emergency scenes. The addition of Battalion Chiefs strengthened incident command, improved accountability and risk management, enhanced firefighter safety, and modernized the Department’s command structure in accordance with national best practices.
● The reorganization also eliminated a standalone Fire Prevention position and redistributed those responsibilities among the Battalion Chiefs. This restructuring lowered personnel costs while maintaining, and in many cases strengthening, fire prevention oversight. By integrating prevention responsibilities within operational leadership roles, the Department increased organizational bandwidth without increasing headcount and improved coordination between prevention and operations.
● Recognizing that approximately 70 percent of service demand is EMS-related, the Department established dedicated EMS leadership positions to oversee quality assurance, documentation compliance, deployment strategy, and training consistency. These roles strengthened system oversight and ensured that the Town properly captured reimbursement for services already being delivered. Since FY21, collected EMS revenue has increased from $1.71 million to $2.61 million — a 52.6 percent increase in actual revenue received. While rising call volume contributes to this growth, improved documentation accuracy and oversight have ensured that revenue associated with that demand is not lost. These improvements reflect structural reform producing measurable financial return without increasing administrative overhead.
● The Department also transitioned training oversight from external resources to an on-duty EMS Captain. This adjustment reduces outside training expenditures, improves consistency and accountability, and allows training to occur while personnel remain available for emergency response. The position serves multiple operational and administrative functions, supporting EMS oversight, quality assurance, and community initiatives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this staffing flexibility enabled the Department to expand public health programming and community outreach efforts without adding personnel.
● A defining characteristic of the Department’s post-2020 structure is
cross-functional utilization of staff. Battalion Chiefs oversee both operational command and prevention responsibilities. EMS leadership manages clinical performance, documentation compliance, and training. Command staff balance administrative oversight with emergency response functions. Rather than creating narrowly defined positions, leadership roles are structured to carry multiple responsibilities, increasing productivity per position and reducing the need for additional administrative staffing.
● Collectively, these reforms demonstrate that the Department has implemented significant efficiencies over the past six years. The current organizational structure reflects deliberate modernization efforts focused on safety, service delivery, fiscal responsibility, and measurable performance outcomes.
FY27 Requested Budget Highlights
● Budget Requests
○ The FY27 budget of $8,441,761 represents a level-service budget that includes a 2.5% anticipated cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for all personnel. At this time personnel costs account for 93.5% of the proposed budget.
○ The expense side of the budget has remained relatively constant over the last five years due to the efforts of department members to secure grants totaling over $3.2 million since the inception of a voluntary internal grant committee in 2019. These grant awards have supported equipment purchases and training that otherwise would have required funding through the operating budget or capital requests.
○ In CY24, the Department began staffing a third ambulance 40 business hours per week to meet the growing demand for emergency medical services in the community. A presentation was made to the Town Council on February 5, 2025 that provided data from calendar year 2024 clearly demonstrating the need for a third full-time ambulance. In addition to providing more efficient medical service coverage, the additional ambulance staffing also allows the Department to more readily staff the Tower Ladder at Headquarters.
○ The Tower Ladder has no permanent firefighters assigned to it and is
cross-staffed with ambulance personnel when available. This budget reflects the continuation of operating the third ambulance on a part-time basis for FY27 at current staffing levels.
○ As in previous budget discussions, our message regarding potential reductions in FY27 remains consistent and clear: any reduction in the Department’s operating budget would necessitate a corresponding reduction in staffing levels. A decrease in firefighter/paramedic staffing would require the third, part-time ambulance at Headquarters to be removed from service and would further reduce the availability of the tower truck, which is already limited while the third ambulance operates on a part-time basis.
○ The elimination of the third ambulance would result in increased transport times to hospitals, greater reliance on mutual aid ambulances, and a significant loss of ambulance transport revenue to the Town. The loss of any personnel would set the Department back operationally and prevent us from keeping pace with the growing service demands of the community.
● Challenges
○ The Department’s call volume continues to increase year after year, with 2025 marking a historic high of 5,651 emergency calls. Of those calls, 3,999 (70%) were emergency medical service incidents, with 2,876 (71.9% percent) resulting in patient transport to a hospital. The demand for emergency services continues to increase steadily.
○ Based on recent call volume trends, the Department anticipates that annual emergency responses will approach or exceed 6,000 calls by Calendar Year 2027. This continued growth places additional strain on personnel, apparatus availability, and response system capacity.
○ Calendar Year 2025 mutual aid activity further reflects the growing demand placed on the regional emergency response system. The Department received 325 mutual aid responses from neighboring communities and provided 158 responses in return, demonstrating both the high service demand within the Town and the Department’s continued role in regional emergency response.
○ Additionally, the Department continues to experience extended response times of up to 12 minutes or more to portions of the north end of Town due to geographic distance from existing fire stations. We are encouraged that the recently updated Town Master Plan identifies the long-term need for a third fire station in the north end of Franklin, which would improve response coverage and enhance the Department’s ability to provide consistent service throughout the community.
○ Maintaining current staffing levels is critical to ensuring the Department can continue to meet the growing service demands of the community. Any reduction in staffing would directly impact the Department’s operational capabilities, including the ability to maintain the third ambulance currently operating on a part-time basis, and would place additional strain on an already busy emergency response system.
Continue reading the PDF of this section -
For the full FY 2027 budget narrative - https://www.franklinma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/8912/FY27-Budget-Narrative-FINAL-1
The FY 2027 budget information can be found
