TROTWOOD — Five firefighters in Trotwood now have 30 days to find a new job.
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As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, Trotwood’s City Council approved its 2026 budget Wednesday night.
As previously reported by News Center 7, it doesn’t have enough funds to keep all the current firefighters on staff.
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Trotwood’s fire union is not happy about this decision.
“Back to the drawing board, see what we can do,” Trotwood Fire Union President Seth Haley said.
Haley said he doesn’t agree with the council’s decision.
“We’re approaching 8,000 calls for service, which is more than we’ve ever taken in the last five years. And our call volume has gone up 15%. We cannot operate with less people; we need more than five,” he said.
In 2021, the city was awarded the FEMA SAFER Grant, which paid for nine full-time, temporary firefighting positions.
In February 2025, the city found out it was no longer eligible for the grant.
Of those nine grant employees, five are still with the department.
The city paid to keep those crews on staff through the end of 2025, but didn’t budget to keep them in 2026.
After the meeting, News Center 7 crews spoke with the mayor, who said those five firefighters should have been gone in February.
“At that time, even before that time, they were told that they would not lose their jobs. That they would be safe, and the city would continue to fund them for the remainder of this year. Typically, in the Safer Grant, cities look to secure funding to keep those folks on; we just hadn’t done that,” Haley said.
He thinks the department already has staffing issues, and cutting five positions will do no good.
Earlier this month, the Trotwood Fire Chief told News Center 7 that he does not think losing these positions will cause them to take longer to respond in an emergency.
“At this point, if we lose these guys, it may not be a city of Trotwood piece of equipment that shows up; it could be from the Dayton Fire Department,” Haley said.
He added that those five firefighters have about 30 days to find a different place to work.
The Trotwood Fire Chief was at the meeting on Wednesday, but left before News Center 7’s Taylor Robertson could speak with him about the decision.
We will continue to follow this story.
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