Tt comment nov 18 2015 - d

Excerpts from a Nov 18, 2015 Toledo Blade story titled: Toledo Fire Department - Questions about smoke detector funds raised

The Toledo fire chief and at least one other high-ranking fire official used money earmarked to buy Toledoans smoke detectors to instead pay for hotel rooms, conference costs, and dinners, according to documents obtained Tuesday by The Blade.

Toledo City Council Tuesday quietly reviewed legislation to change how the city’s “smoke detector trust fund” money can be spent after some members learned that the fund was used to pay for things other than smoke detectors before they were permissible.

On Aug. 12, 2014, council altered the fund rules, allowing the fire department to use that money for “accreditation expenditures” and “officer and professional management education.”

But receipts and city expense forms obtained by The Blade show that the fund was being used for dinners and travel before council approved that change in August, 2014.

City Chief of Staff Bob Reinbolt said the late Mayor D. Michael Collins asked council to make the change to the legislation in August, 2014, because expenses had been charged for accreditation purposes — like hotel rooms and food — with the smoke detector trust fund.

That fund was created in 2002 with private donations and a fire department program fee. Use of the fund was limited to paying for smoke detectors, other alarm systems, residential sprinklers, and public education material.

Jeff Romstadt, president of Toledo Firefighters Local 92, told The Blade that the fund “looks like a slush fund.”

Mayor Hicks-Hudson said on Tuesday that she would have the city law department review the expenditures.

Rumored prototype of the new TFD trucks.