Greenfield Fire Department personnel work with members of the Ascension St. Vincent StatFlight crew during a training scenario in July. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)
GREENFIELD – Greenfield’s police officers and firefighters will soon vote on whether to establish an independent merit board or continue relying on city government to manage their departments’ personnel matters.
In May 2023, the Indiana legislature passed House Bill 1016, which allows police and fire departments to establish a merit system if they so choose.
According to the new law, the board of works in each Indiana city and town is required to either adopt or reject the notion of a fire merit board by Dec. 31 while each town council or city council is required to adopt or reject establishing a police merit board by Dec. 31.
If they don’t vote to reject a merit board, one will be automatically enacted Jan. 1.
In the end, the final decision is determined by a vote from each police and fire department’s full-time personnel.
In Greenfield, the Board of Works has overseen the hiring, firing, and promotions for the city’s police and fire departments for many years.
Last week, the board voted against establishing a fire merit board and rather continue that oversight by the city.
The next day the Greenfield City Council also voted to reject establishing a police merit board for the city, allowing the Board of Works to continue oversight for both police and fire departments.
With that input, the next step is for the city’s police and fire departments to make their own decision, based on votes from all active full-time personnel.
Local firefighters will cast their votes Sept. 5-6, while police will vote on the matter Sept. 19.
City attorney Gregg Morelock said other central Indiana cities similar in size to Greenfield have also rejected establishing merit boards.
Brownsburg recently voted against it, he said, and Plainfield has done the same, sending the vote to police and fire personnel.
Regardless, the day to day operations of police and fire departments are still run by the departments, said Morelock.
“A merit board, whether police or fire, only controls hiring, firing, promotions and discipline,” he said.
Greenfield’s Board of Works and City Council members are comfortable with the current arrangement of the board overseeing the city’s fire and police departments, he said, rather than establishing merit boards.
“There’s a level of bureaucracy and expense (with merit boards) because not only do you have to pay all the members to attend the meeting, but the board will have to have its own legal counsel, and they have to put together rules of procedures and policies and so forth,” Morelock said.
Greenfield’s fire chief, Jason Horning, said his firefighters will have the final say on whether to establish a merit board or not.
“Right now I’m still trying to learn all the pros and cons about it myself,” he said after last week’s council meeting.
“As far as being a fire chief, it doesn’t matter to me whether I go to the Board of Works or a merit board to take care of personnel matters,” said Horning.
While he said the firefighters are happy with the current Board of Works, it’s impossible what future boards will look like as the members come and go.
“We’re very fortunate in that we’ve got a great Board of Works and a great City Council, but it’s about looking to the future, and the future is always unknown as far as what kind of people you’re going to have serving in those positions,” said Horning.
“Right now we’re having information sessions conducted by the Professional Fire Fighters Union of Indiana just to give everybody the information and background they need to be informed and make a good decision for their future,” he said.
If firefighters vote for a merit board, the chief said it would be the first time the city had one in his experience.
“In the past a merit board was established, however … (it) never got up and running,” he said.
Since then the notion of a merit board has faded away, he said, until the Indiana legislature passed the bill last year requiring cities and towns to either reject or adopt merit boards to oversee police and fire departments.
Deputy Chief Chuck McMichael of the Greenfield Police Department said it’s now in the hands of the city’s police officers to decide whether they want to establish a merit board or continue having the Board of Works oversee its personnel matters.
“At this point it’s really up to our active members as to whether or not they think it’s a good idea,” he said.
“(Speaking) as the department’s administration, we’re happy with the way the process has been going for many years with the Board of Works. We think they do a great job at being not only impartial but responsible with the city’s money as far as equipment and things like that are concerned. They ask great questions when it comes to hiring and discipline and promotions and all of those things already, but this is an opportunity that the legislature has given the membership of the department (to establish a merit board), so essentially the decision will be theirs.”
While House Bill 1016 invites police and fire departments to establish a merit system if they so choose, it also states that an existing merit board may be dissolved after Jan. 1, 2025.
Looking to the future, the bill requires that a unit, district or territory repeats the process and votes to either retain or dissolve the merit system between Jan. 1-31, 2029.
