The Covington City Commission appointed Corey Deye as the interim fire chief at their meeting last week, following Fire Chief Mark Pierce’s announcement that he would retire.
Deye currently serves as the city’s deputy fire chief, the department’s No. 2 in command, and will assume the role on April 1. Deye is well known and well respected in the department, but his appointment comes amidst broader conversations about city finances.
“I have total confidence in Corey and his ability to act a fire chief until the post is filled permanently,” said Covington City Manager Ken Smith. “He and the assistant chiefs are more than capable of leading the Department during this transition period.”
Pierce expressed similar sentiments to LINK nky.
“He’s very well-qualified,” Pierce said. “He will do great things.”
Deye came to Covington in 2004, starting as a paramedic. Deye was instrumental in the creation of the city’s fire cadet program, which brings on young recruits, gives them paid training and places them at the top of the list for becoming members of the department once they complete the program. Similar programs already existed for police cadets, but a paid fire cadet program was novel. The program has been around for about a year.
“It’s fresh out of high school kids that we have hired as part-time employees, as cadets,” Deye said. “And the city is sending them through EMT school, which they’re in currently, then they’ll go to fire school and then ultimately to paramedic school. If they make it through all of that, they still like our service, and we’re happy with their work ethic, they become number one on our list and ultimately give them an opportunity to be hired.”
Deye also served as one of the first medics for the Covington SWAT team. Likewise, he spearheaded several other community projects, including a project with the Holmes High School carpentry program two years ago, which saw students build wooden training props for the fire department.
When asked what his goals were for the department, Deye demurred a bit, saying that his role was temporary, although he hoped to make the department grow–the department is currently understaffed with only 116 of the 122 firefighting positions filled.
He also admitted that the city was going through rough financial times.
Money loomed large in the background of his appointment. A deficit in the city’s general fund, which city staff has attributed to novel tax-withholding policies occurring in conjunction with work-from-home labor arrangements, prompted the city to try to curtail overtime spending from the fire department. This led to protestations from Professional Firefighters Local 38, Covington’s fire union, which argued the overtime cuts had the effect of reducing staff to the point of endangering public safety.
This culminated in a public rebuke of Pierce at the commission meeting on Feb. 20. The commissioners peppered Pierce with questions, wanting to know if the reduction endangered public safety. When he said that it could, seemingly changing his tune from his initial recommendations, they chastised him.
“At no point did you say,…’Ron it’s unsafe,’” City Commissioner Ron Washington said.
“It’s very disappointing that you did not tell us that this was an unsafe environment,” Washington concluded.
Pierce announced his retirement two days later.
In a phone call with LINK nky, Pierce affirmed that retirement was the reason he had chosen to step down and declined to comment if the tension between the city and union influenced his decision one way or another.
Still, the timing is uneasy, and the city’s budgetary woes have had effects on other departments on as well. Earlier in February, the commission tabled decisions to purchase equipment for the public works department as well as the hiring of administrative assistant for the neighborhood services department until they had a better understanding of the budget constraints for the next fiscal year.
In an email, a representative from the city said that they were still in the process of finding a permanent chief. The city did not offer additional details.