Waite Park and St. Cloud Fire Departments Enter 10-Year Partnership

(KNSI) – The Waite Park Fire Department is struggling to remain even half-staffed, forcing the city council’s hand at Monday’s meeting when it entered into a ten-year agreement with the City of St. Cloud to assist in providing service.

City Administrator Shaunna Johnson explains how it will work. “Moving forward, what we have in the agreement is that they will have a four-man crew that will be responding to all of our fire calls. And they, being full-time staff, have a lot of times the ability to get to those scenes quicker than what we can.”

Johnson says Waite Park isn’t the only pay-per-response department that needs help retaining and finding new members. The city is currently conducting a study on a new fire station that will look at the possibility of switching to full-time personnel. Nothing is off the table, but nothing has been committed to either.

The Waite Park Fire Department only has between 13 and 15 members, rather than the 30 it is budgeted for. For the last several months, the city has been operating on a handshake with the St. Cloud Fire Department. Johnson says the partnership will expand to all calls next summer.

“In July of next year, they’ll start also responding to the medical calls. And, for us, our medical calls are things that our police department actually respond to. And, so, they’ll be on scene to handle any of those calls. We have about 300 fire calls a year and about 800 to 900 medicals a year.”

Either side can cancel the agreement by giving one year’s notice. Waite Park will pay the City of St. Cloud every three months while it is in effect. The cost rises to over $210,000 per quarter by 2033. After the 10-year period, the deal would renew each year if needed.

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