SWAMPSCOTT — The Fire Department will be conducting an entrance examination session on Saturday, Aug. 10, with a deadline to apply by Friday, Aug. 2.
According to Fire Chief Graham Archer, the department currently has two vacancies it is looking to fill, with more anticipated to occur throughout the next several years due to retirements.
“We always try to have a ready list of people who have at least begun the process,” Archer said. “We hope to have enough applicants that we can hold on to the list for a couple of years.”
Archer added that entrance-exam opportunities usually do not occur more than once per year in town.
Some requirements to take the exam include a high-school or General Educational Development degree and being at least 21 years of age. If hired, new firefighters would have to relocate to within a 25-mile radius of Swampscott within a year.
Archer cited the exam opportunity as another example of why he believes Swampscott departing from civil service was beneficial to the department’s hiring process.
“We wanted our hiring to be more in line with the way other professional organizations select people,” Archer said. “We collect resumes and look at the qualifications of a person and we look at the needs of the department… but we very intentionally did not tie ourselves strictly to the exam score the way civil service did.”
Earlier this month, Archer gave his department’s annual report to the Select Board. The board noted how the cost of fire personnel, totaling approximately $340,000, was alarmingly high.
“If you have one position that’s out, you’re backfilling for that position at that salary plus overtime,” Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said during the department’s report. “These are difficult departments in terms of the physical and overall impact that public safety has on our staff… We’re going to see some significant overtime.”
More than 120 applicants have applied so far to take the test at Swampscott High School. The cost to sign up for the exam is $25, and it can be done so at https://www.swampscottma.gov/fire/pages/firefighter-job-opportunities .
