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Lino Lakes, Minnesota – Fire Department Analysis Page 22 <br /> <br />In practice, Public Safety Directors almost always come from the ranks of the police department. One <br />frequently heard complaint is that fire fighters and their department’s needs are not always well <br />understood if the Director does not share a background in firefighting. New Brighton noted that the <br />combined model works well for them in large part because their Fire Services Director was both a police <br />officer and a volunteer fire fighter, which is an unusual case. In Woodbury, many members of the <br />department are officer/paramedics or officer/firefighters. <br /> <br />Figure 9 is a conceptual organizational structure for a Lino Lakes Public Safety Department. This <br />conceptual organization has two career deputy directors reporting to the Director of Public Safety, but the <br />police and fire departments would remain as separate branches. Financially, the budget would be <br />separated into fire and police divisions, except where individuals work in both divisions; these positions <br />would be allocated by the proportion of time spent in each division. Primarily, the weekday daytime <br />response would be with paid-on-call personnel instead of career fire personnel as it is now. The career <br />staff of LLFD would be the Deputy Director and a Training/Fire Prevention Specialist. Each station <br />would have 21 paid on call personnel, including a Deputy Chief, a Lieutenant, and 19 firefighters. <br /> <br />This option would need significant follow-up work, to establish budgets, new job descriptions, response <br />assignments, the timing and extent of new hiring, and many other specific components critical to the <br />operation of a public safety department. This plan gives the City Council one conceptual idea of how to <br />combine the two departments if it should choose to do so. <br /> <br /> <br />28