Baltimore County’s $3M investment would more than double battalion chief staffing

By Natalie Jones
Baltimore Sun

BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. — Baltimore County Executive Kathy Klausmeier’s proposed budget will include more than $3 million to add 12 battalion chiefs to the county fire department — a move she says will speed command response and improve safety as call volumes surge.

The plan, outlined on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s fiscal 2027 budget rollout, would more than double the department’s current number of battalion chiefs.

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“Before I became county executive, I never realized how big this county really is,” Klausmeier said in a Towson news conference. “The sooner these leaders are present during an emergency, the sooner they can ensure a scene that’s under control — and in an emergency, every minute matters.”

A long-term problem

The county fire department has long been shorthanded on battalion chiefs, who are responsible for overseeing operations at the scene of a fire, directing crews, and making decisions to keep firefighters and the public safe. Klausmeier said the number of battalion chiefs has been reduced since 2000, leaving fewer leaders across one of Maryland’s largest counties.

That year, Baltimore County slashed its number of fire districts from five to three, leaving only three field battalion chiefs on duty at any time, according to previous reporting in The Baltimore Sun. At the time, fire officials criticized the staffing changes and raised safety concerns, while higher-ranking officials contended that the time to respond to incidents would not be significant.

Now, county firefighters respond to more than 150,000 calls annually, according to Baltimore County Fire Chief Joseph Dixon.

“As this county has grown, call volumes increase, those responsibilities continue to be stretched so thin, sometimes across multiple incidents, sometimes across long distances,” said Andrew Pantelis, the 4th district vice president of the International Association of Firefighters. “When command is delayed, or it’s divided, risk goes up.”

Additional battalion chiefs will mean faster command presence, Pantelis said, along with stronger coordination and safer operations.

Longtime firefighter Steve Redmer, president of the Baltimore County Professional Firefighters Association, said he couldn’t count how many times he had heard that additional battalion chiefs would never come back. But sitting down with Klausmeier earlier this year to talk about budget needs, Redmer made one primary request for more personnel.

“I never thought this day would come,” he said on Wednesday. “So many people said it would never come — here it is.”

In an interview, Redmer said there have been recent attempts to add the extra staff, but they never panned out. However, previous county administrations did replace older equipment and purchase additional gear for firefighters.

“This department is cut to the bone — there’s no fat, there’s nothing to cut, and that’s the status, that’s the way things have been through my entire career,” he said. “That’s why this is so huge.”

Klausmeier will release her full fiscal 2027 budget at 10 a.m. Thursday in Towson.

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