By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Fire Chief Steven Beer updated the City Council Tuesday on the accreditation process for the department.
"It's been a whirlwind, especially with COVID," Beer said. "The team that has been assembled to put this whole thing together here consists of labor, the union president was actually on the team with a bunch of union members along with management."
Beer said the union and management are pulling the rope in the same direction, and he finds that refreshing.
"We have a meeting this week with a chief from the Charlotte, North Carolina Fire Department," Beer said. "Him and his team are going to be coming to Hutch possibly this spring. They're going to come in and take a look at our books that we've prepared and they are going to validate everything that we say that we are doing. It's basically a third-party audit to make sure we're doing the best practices in our industry and if we're not, what are we going to do to start doing them?"
March is a key month for the department.
"If we get by that hurdle in March, we'll be going in front of the commission in July of this year," Beer said. "I hope at that time to come back to you in July with the approval that Hutch Fire was internationally accredited. If that happens, which I am really sure that it will happen here, Hutch Fire will be put on the map as one of forty some fire departments in the world that have ISO 1 class city and are internationally accredited."
Beer noted that the rank and file firefighters are the reason that this is possible.