As the state prepares to hire its first fire marshal, the council in charge is considering several ways to speed up recruiting.
The State Fire Council is composed of all the county fire chiefs and state fire service representatives. The group says it has finalized the job description for the new position, which was approved by Gov. Josh Green in July.
Hawaiʻi is the only state in the country that does not have a fire marshal. Whoever gets the job will assess fire risk, work with state and county partners, and enforce the state fire code.
But finding the right person for the job has been a challenge.
Members of the Fire Council have informally reached out to individuals who they thought would be qualified for the job. However, they were met with several rejections.
“We’ve gotten a lot of denials apparently,” said Maui Fire Chief Brad Ventura at last week’s Fire Council meeting. “No thank you's, a lot of no thank you's.”
Hawaiʻi County Fire Chief Kazuo Todd explained that state and county retirement status is an issue.
“A lot of times, the guys that have the experience and the knowledge who would be good at this either are already employed by us or they're retired,” Todd said.
“And for the guys that are retired, if they come back, this would be potentially something that wouldn't help the retirement system. It would actually make them earn less money by coming back sometimes. So there's potential ramifications with taking one of these positions," he continued.
That's why the council is considering an 89-day temporary hire for the position, which does not require going through civil service selection procedures.
The council says it will buy them time while they continue to search for a long-term candidate.
“I think the 89-day hire concept is that if there’s already someone that we expressed interest in, or in general, the State Fire Council thought would be a good pick, but we weren’t going to go through the full hiring process and everything else — we could expedite that and appoint someone temporarily and start the process and get some stuff going,” Todd said.
An 89-day hire could start immediately and can be extended, while the permanent position would likely take months to install.
The State Fire Council currently performs some aspects of the fire marshal role, but that is on top of the fire chiefs' day-to-day jobs and with limited staffing compared to other counterparts across the county.
The Legislature has budgeted $172,000 to fund the position, an assistant and training.
The council is considering candidates who are both local and living on the U.S. continent.
