I had an interesting front-porch discussion last evening with a friend about the alleged morale problem within the Greensboro Fire Department. My friend’s in a unique position because she’s friends with both N&R reporter Brian Ewing, who did the story that ran earlier this week, and Firefighter Brad Shumate, who was mentioned in the story.
I carefully re-read the story, which focused on the internal review of the department, which was based on interviews with the command staff conducted by Assistant City Manager Bob Morgan. The review will supposedly prompt “new changes to the department’s massive restructuring plan.”
The thing I noticed is charges of nepotism appear to be rather weak, at least on the face of it. This where Firefighter Shumate comes in:
Morgan said the consulting firm will be asked to review the department’s promotions, hiring and training policies.
“These are not issues that are uncommon in other (fire) departments,” he said.
Morgan also said that promotions were given by a panel of administrators and not by Teeters alone.
However, he said hiring subordinates for personal work left room for suspicions. “It certainly opens you up to those accusations.”
The review is already affecting the department. Teeters said after hearing the concerns, he brought in his command staff last week to discuss how to address issues surrounding the department restructuring plan.
Teeters and the staff began work on the plan last summer after a city investigation into the same accusations. The restructuring overhauled the command structure and took effect last month, but complaints persisted.
Among those were concerns about firefighter Brad Shumate under the command of his father, Deputy Chief Danny Shumate.
In February, Danny Shumate was moved from the business systems division to field operations. At the time Teeters also began overseeing one of the department’s four divisions — urban preparedness.
Teeters said the command staff spent an afternoon last week discussing how to address the concerns without him present and presented their recommendations.
“I said, ‘I’m going to leave so you can feel comfortable,'” Teeters said.
Danny Shumate was moved back to business systems and the urban preparedness division now answers to a deputy chief.
I realize a son working under the command of his father might not look very good, but is this all they’ve got? Unfortunately, the story doesn’t really discuss exactly what the issue truly is. Help me out if I missed it.
I realize this isn’t an issue being pushed by the newspaper, it’s being pushed by some firefighters inside the department. But is it a real problem, or is it a problem being created by a disgruntled few within the department? The review will be turned over to City Manager Mitchell Johnson this week, but there was no mention of public release. It will be an interesting read.
