KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
As the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas prepares to vote on its 2026 budget on August 28, the KCK fire department is grappling with another year of 'deplorable' fire stations.
“We’ve been operating below the national safety standards for as long as anybody can remember,” said JJ Simma, President of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 64 in Kansas City, Kansas.
Simma joined the fire department and the fire union in September 2024 to inform the Unified Government commission about the extent of the issues. The KCK fire union has about 600 members.
The conditions at fire stations are something a union representative spoke to KSHB 41 about in 2019.
“The cabinet doors are literally falling off,” said Kansas City, Kansas, Fire Chief Dennis Rubin at a September 26 special meeting.
He led a presentation at the special meeting with recommendations for the Master Plan, which contained several images showcasing the condition of several fire stations in the area.
The slides had multiple descriptors on each image, including 'inadequate,' 'deplorable' and 'horrible.'
Simma says out of the 18 fire stations in KCK, 16 need extensive renovation or starting over with a new fire station.
Two other fire stations were built within the last five to six years.
The department's oldest fire station is over 100 years old.
“We’re at a point now where this commission and mayor, they’ve inherited the problem,” Simma said.
Simma expressed appreciation for the support he’s received from the current UG leadership, which was the same body that voted not to exceed revenue neutral in July 2024.
This decision came after public outcry over high property taxes in KCK.
“We’ve heard over time of the condition of our police cars and some of our fire equipment because we’ve made decision about deferring replacements,” said County Administrator David Johnston at the June 12 budget workshop the UG hosted.
The topic of the June 12 meeting was personnel, something Simma expressed has been the main impact of the revenue neutral vote.
“The revenue neutral decision was, has been, a challenge, with regards to mainly staffing,” Simma said.
At the workshop, UG staff reported five vacancies for the fire department, which was significantly less than police and public works.
“Essential services are still solidly intact,” said Mayor Tyrone Garner after a 2024 commission meeting where he and commissioners discussed the budget.
Garner was adamant about not cutting public safety personnel, but instead of jobs cuts, the fire department’s overtime budget was limited.
“We’ve just not been able to fill what we have, leaving some vacancies and also creating those day to day shortages where we’re not calling overtime to fill the vacancies,” Simma said. “We’re operating a little understaffed.”
Simma says there have been no impacts on response times and that hiring is still steady.
In fact, the department graduated a new fire academy class a month prior.
“Our membership is still doing the same job, we’re just doing it with a few less firefighters on our apparatus,” Simma said.
Simma says the revenue neutral vote didn’t impact the department’s infrastructure.
“Revenue neutral probably didn’t have a major impact on the overall building portion of the master plan of what we’ve got to come up with to address this,” Simma said. “That was just one year.”
Funding is the biggest hurdle Simma says they need to leap over, but it needs to be more permanent than a one-year fix.
Now’s an appropriate time as any to have the conversation, and Simma says that conversation can’t stop.
“The long term is if we don’t start to address them, we’ll see further deterioration,” Simma said. “We’ve been well aware of it for a considerable amount of time. There’s been a lot of conversation about it.”
