New Fire Rescue recruits among those Carlos Gimenez had cut

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From the chopping block to the firetruck: Forty new firefighter paramedics who were slated for the unemployment line last year during budget talks that threatened to shut down rescue units — will instead join the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue force after they celebrate their graduation this afternoon.

Recruit Class #124 underwent 10 weeks of “intense” training, but not all of them are new first responders. More than half of these “rookies” are military veterans or come from other municipal fire departments.

They are, however, the first new firefighters hired by the county since 2009. That oughta help a little with the overtime that commissioners love to complain about. You know, the overtime blamed for department’s budget woes and which was the stated cause for the rolling brownouts last year that shut down one, two or three units at a time.

As if overtime could do it all by itself without the mismanagement and retention issues.

These 40 men and women were among almost 150 that were on Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s list of threatened layoffs at the department, the seventh largest in the U.S. with more than 2,000 firefighter paramedics responding to hundreds of 911 calls every day.

We’re a busy county. So, welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen.

Let’s hope Gimenez doesn’t threaten to fire you right away. You might be safe this year — that federal grant he got to plug the hole in the budget and safe the firefighters from being fired and stations from being shut down was good for two years.

But keep your resumes fresh, just in case.

  Carlos Gimenez, firefighters, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue