{"id":141428,"date":"2026-03-18T05:34:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/141428\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T05:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:34:19","slug":"bethlehem-fire-department-considers-creating-short-term-job-union-president-pushes-back-on-temporary-fixes-bethlehem-area-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/141428\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem Fire Department considers creating short-term job; union president pushes back on \u2018temporary fixes\u2019 | Bethlehem Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 Bethlehem City Council approved a measure creating a \u201ctemporary help account\u201d as the fire department evaluates creating a short-term, part-time position to support the ongoing conversion of its records management system.<\/p>\n<p>Fire Chief Matthew Griffin said the temporary assistance will help update system data related to calls, emergency contact information for properties and other records. He expects the position to last about 90 days.<\/p>\n<p>Additional firefighter positions were a point of contention during discussions of the city\u2019s 2026 budget, with two councilmembers voting against the budget because it did not include funding for more firefighters.<\/p>\n<p>Griffin has said the department is staffed to its budgeted complement of 106 firefighters but remains concerned about overtime.<\/p>\n<p>During public comment on Monday, Bethlehem IAFF Local 735 President Lou Jimenez said he does not view temporary help as a long-term solution to staffing concerns.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTemporary fixes can become long-term Band-aids. When that happens, issues never truly get addressed,\u201d Jimenez said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 Bethlehem City Council approved a measure creating a \u201ctemporary help account\u201d as the fire department&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,164,3410,155,154],"class_list":["post-141428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-city-council","tag-bethlehem-fire-department","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}