{"id":40853,"date":"2024-01-10T19:19:58","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T00:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=40853"},"modified":"2024-01-10T19:20:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T00:20:03","slug":"polk-county-fire-battalion-chief-fired-after-payment-dispute-review-in-the-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/01\/10\/polk-county-fire-battalion-chief-fired-after-payment-dispute-review-in-the-works\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County fire battalion chief fired after payment dispute, review in the works"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A battalion chief lost his job over pay he and his crews received, documents obtained by News Channel 8 show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the firefighter union appeals the termination, county commissioners are demanding a full review of the department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we have a management problem in our fire department and Mr. Beasley that starts with you,\u201d County Commissioner Bill Braswell told County Manager Bill Beasley at Tuesday\u2019s commission meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Braswell said he learned about the firing of Battalion Chief Charles True this week on social media, days after his termination and months after an investigation was launched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can blame the rank and file up until a point and then you gotta start looking at management and that\u2019s where we\u2019re at,\u201d said Braswell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August, Polk Fire Rescue crews joined the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office to help with Hurricane Idalia relief efforts in Levy County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a Polk County Fire Rescue investigative report, Battalion Chief True was told to split crews into 12-hour shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, members told investigators, there was so much to do, they kept working past their shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to True\u2019s termination memo, all but one crew member worked 24-hour shifts from Aug. 31 until Sept. 7, costing the county $60,000.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Battalion Chief True told investigators he was told to document the hours worked and the members would be paid for what they worked, the investigative report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Jan. 5, True was fired for failure to supervise, compliance of orders and insubordination, and untruthfulness. He had served with the department since 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the most recent performance review from his personnel file, True was called a \u201crespected team leader.\u201d It was noted that he \u201cknows how important it is to document his work and that of his team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement over the phone, True said he was thankful for the support he has received but declined to comment further at the advice of his attorney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Polk County Professional Firefighters \u2013 IAFF Local 3531 is appealing True\u2019s firing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPolk County Professional Firefighters is actively appealing the unjust termination of Battalion Chief True. By all measures, he was an outstanding employee and leader of Polk County Fire Rescue. We will continue to aggressively defend our members rights and appreciate the support from the community which we serve,\u201d wrote union Vice President Jon Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

County officials declined to comment, pending the appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Braswell said he was in touch with the Florida Association of Counties Wednesday to find a firm to do the review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the next three months, we should have some pretty good answers, have a good idea of where our fire department is, where they stand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Tuesday\u2019s meeting, other commissioners expressed support for the review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s certainly no loss of confidence on my part by leadership of the organization or the manager\u2019s office but a fresh look to affirm that, I\u2019m not opposed it,\u201d said Commissioner George Lindsey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have to have your policies in writing. You can\u2019t make them up on the fly. You can\u2019t make them up from situation to situation. It\u2019s up to the people at the top to make sure those policies are in place, that they\u2019re equally enforced, that they\u2019re published for all to see,\u201d said Commissioner Neil Combee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A battalion chief lost his job over pay he and his crews received, documents obtained by News Channel 8 show. As the firefighter union appeals the termination, county commissioners are… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[7250,7251],"class_list":["post-40853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-polk-county-fire-battalion-chief-fired-after-payment-dispute","tag-review-in-the-works"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40855,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40853\/revisions\/40855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}