{"id":51474,"date":"2025-12-03T21:58:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/51474\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T21:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T21:58:16","slug":"bethlehem-city-council-hears-feedback-on-fire-department-funding-staffing-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/51474\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem City Council hears feedback on fire department funding, staffing | State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bethlehem-pa.gov\/CityOfBethlehem\/media\/AdminMediaFolder\/Budgets\/COB-2026-Proposed-Budget.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">city&#8217;s 2026 budget<\/a> was the focus of much of Tuesday&#8217;s Bethlehem City Council meeting.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting began with comments from council President Michael Colon, who asked that most budget-related remarks be reserved for the upcoming budget amendment hearing on Thursday at 6 p.m. in town hall, hoping to avoid a repeat of the eight-hour discussion last month.<\/p>\n<p>In November, the budget hearing focused on the police, fire and emergency services budget, where councilmembers heard concerns about safety and city coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Public comment on Tuesday was peppered with remarks about the city&#8217;s firefighters. Bethlehem IAFF Local 735 President Lou Jimenez asked council to add four positions to the budget.<\/p>\n<p>Fire Chief Matthew Griffin previously said the department is staffed to its budgeted complement of 106 firefighters but remains concerned about overtime. The city is pursuing a comprehensive study to analyze call volume, staffing and paramedic responses. Officials said staffing is only one aspect of the study.<\/p>\n<p>City Councilmember Bryan Callahan discussed a budget amendment whereby local nonprofits would pay a yearly fee for emergency services. The fee, he said, would pay for additional staff to provide coverage for the city.<\/p>\n<p>A final budget vote will be held Dec. 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 The city&#8217;s 2026 budget was the focus of much of Tuesday&#8217;s Bethlehem City Council meeting.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[153,164,17227,4032,136,138,137,13764,13765,29066,294,2876],"class_list":{"0":"post-51474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-city-council","10":"tag-bryan-callahan","11":"tag-emergency-services","12":"tag-erie","13":"tag-erie-headlines","14":"tag-erie-news","15":"tag-lou-jimenez","16":"tag-matthew-griffin","17":"tag-michael-colon","18":"tag-public-safety","19":"tag-public-services"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51474","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=51474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}