Dozens of firefighters at South Tucson Fire Department were informed of their termination earlier this month by email after the city announced a new partnership.
Reserve firefighters, also called reservists, are at-will employees who work full time for a fire department and can be called in to other agencies. At-will employment gives the employer the ability to dismiss an employee for any reason.
South Tucson City Manager Veronica Moreno said that the reserve firefighters come from different firefighting agencies in the region. She added that the reserve firefighters already have a full time job, with their at-will employment status at the South Tucson Fire Department being their second job.
“[We have] about 30 reserve firefighters… the number goes up and down depending on, like I mentioned, some of the agencies that were very fortunate to be able to have some of their firefighters work for South Tucson.”
However, an employee at the South Tucson Fire Department who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said that having two jobs is necessary.
The employee mentioned that after a [press release](
city council decided that Rural Metro was the best option to partner with the city’s Fire Department, Moreno said. The city council approved the contract by a 6-1 vote.
Councilmember Paul Diaz was the one vote against the merger. Diaz, who was the former mayor of the City of South Tucson, responded in an email saying that February 1 “is the big day for firing fire personnel and outsourcing the South Tucson Fire department.”
Diaz responded to AZPM stating that he voted no as “it was not the transparency promised. The Council wants affordable housing and to keep high wages for administration.”
Moreno said that Rural Metro, a Phoenix-based fire operations company, has already partnered with other fire departments in Pima County. Rural Metro will employ full-time employees including firefighters, fire arson investigators and a fire inspector on Feb. 1, Moreno said.
In the South Tucson press release, it was stated that this change with Rural Metro’s will be a ‘partnership,’ but the anonymous employees call it a ‘complete takeover.’ In response to the press release stating that the South Tucson Fire Department will stay the same, Moreno clarified nothing with the branding will change.
“Rural Metro will be staffing the City of South Tucson Fire Department. We will still be the City of South Tucson Fire Department using the same identity,” Moreno told AZPM.
In 2024, the City of South Tucson lobbied for its citizens to pass a secondary property tax to support a bond to help their own fire department under proposition 409.
“As far as the department coming in, a lot of citizens, business owners and firefighters believe that the model and how they are going to respond and response times and how it’s going to work is going to be very different in a negative way,” the employee said.
The employee explained that on February 1 they met with the personnel of Rural Metro and handed them the keys.
Moreno maintains that the branding and marketing of the South Tucson Fire Department will not change.
“I think that this is really a big win for the City of South Tucson,” said Moreno. “We also received the community support with regard to proposition 409, which is a ballot measure to help support the fire department.”
