PORT ALLEN - A former West Baton Rouge volunteer firefighter says that parish leaders are not following civil service law regarding the appointment of a fire chief.

"For over three years, our parish has avoided following civil service law for the fire chief position. Documents show qualified candidates were available through proper exams, but instead, they chose a contract arrangement. State experts told them to follow civil service law and procedures, but that guidance wasn't followed," Former WBR volunteer firefighter John Summers told WBRZ.

According to the West Baton Rouge Fire Department, their Fire Chief is currently former State Fire Marshal Butch Browning, who WBR Parish President Jason Manola says is part-time. This was a decision made during the previous parish president, Riley Berthelot's, tenure.

"Riley Berthelot actually announced at a Civil Service Board meeting on May 9 of 2022, that he would like to hire Butch Browning as a part-time consultant to serve in the role as part time fire chief/fire superintendent, and fire superintendent is actually the title on the consulting agreement, but actually gave him all the duties of a fire chief. That's from personnel to continuing consolidation efforts and so forth in a part-time capacity," Manola said.

Summers says a fire chief exam was given in 2021, which is standard law for appointing a new fire chief, but no one from the eligibility list was hired. He says instead that the parish brought in Browning under a private contract.

"Since 2019, the position has been reduced to part-time. In 2022, Butch Browning was brought in as a contractor to help select a full-time chief, but somehow he has been there for the last three years," Summers said.

According to state law, when it comes to full-time fire chiefs, a temporary appointment of one can be used when no eligibility list exists for the fire chief position. The initial limit is 90 days, and then it can be extended for another three months.

Anything beyond that, without appointing someone from an eligibility list, is a violation of state law.

"The state Examiner's Office was clear and to the point, and they have informed the parish several times that they need to follow state civil service law and select a Civil Service Fire Chief and follow their own parish ordinance and ratify that selection," Summers said.

Back in 2021, Manola was serving as the Chief of Administration for the parish and was part of a committee that would review the applicants for the fire chief position and talk about what they were looking for in one.

Manola says that Browning was not an applicant for the full-time fire chief at that time. He added that this was at a time when they were in stages of consolidating multiple districts into one fire district.

"Under the previous parish president, we had to create a full-time fire chief position. We actually had one prior. We actually asked the civil service to deal with the position when we hired a part-time chief prior to that. Then, we reinstated the full-time fire chief, and actually, the Civil Service Board had a list of questions that they provided. The test was taken, and then we get an active list of people that are eligible to serve in that capacity," Manola said.

Manola says there has been some confusion from people about when Berthelot made that announcement.

"We can't find in our records where we actually eliminated the full-time fire chief position, so it was never eliminated in 2021 or 2022, so that position was basically still out there, but that list after 18 months, basically is no longer valid, so we do not have a list at this point that we could even hire from, a full time fire chief," Manola said.

Summers says that up until this year, he was talking to parish council members, Manola, and Browning about trying to come up with a solution to make this work. Summers claims every attempt at being diplomatic has been ignored.

"We offered a clear solution: hire an outside organization like the International Association of Fire Chiefs or something similar to guide professional selection and follow the law designed to protect taxpayers," Summers said.

As the appointing authority now, Manola says that at the next civil service board meeting and with their fire board, he is going to propose that they continue with a part-time fire chief in a consulting capacity with Browning moving forward.

"And then when the time comes, after the transition, once we've had a period of time we're comfortable with, we'll reevaluate. If it's financially feasible and operationally feasible for us to go back and have a full-time fire chief, then I'll make that recommendation to our fire board and to the civil service board to actually do that," Manola said.

Manola told WBRZ that Browning's contract is for $50,000 per year. He claims that compared to a full-time fire chief, they're saving anywhere between $150,000 and $200,000 when one considers benefits and "everything else associated."

"When you have a part time chief, you actually have to remove the full time fire chief from the classification plan of West Baton Rouge Parish's Fire District 1 and that's where there's the potential issue that came to light, basically, is that we still have a full time classified position out there, and have never filled that position. It was never the intention to fill that position. In May 2022, when [Berthelot]said that he was going to appoint a part-time consultant, the next step just didn't take place to where it was removed from our classification plan to a full-time position," Manola said.