KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The Kissimmee Fire Department is gearing up for a major change in how its firefighters work, as the city is discussing increasing the fee it approved to pay for it.
The department is set to launch a new 24-hour-on, 72-hour-off schedule on April 25, according to KFD Fire Chief Jim Walls.
“We’ve been working very hard to hire the 42 firefighters to start a new shift,” Walls said. “It’s the first time in Central Florida that we’ll have a department on a 24/72 schedule.”
The shift was originally slated to begin on April 1, but was delayed. Last month, the city commission updated a memorandum of understanding between the city and the Kissimmee Professional Fire Fighters, IAFF Local 4208, to give firefighters 150 hours of additional “fire holiday leave” to compensate for the delayed rollout.
Walls tells News 6 that recruiting enough paramedics to fill the new positions slowed the timeline.
“That’s been a challenge, as it is across the state,” Walls said. “So we wanted to make sure we had enough medics to run on our trucks because we’re promoting 18 firefighters and they’re all paramedics right now.”
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Last summer, Kissimmee city leaders approved the new 42-hour workweek, a change the chief believes is crucial for both retention and morale.
“Retention has been great ever since we made the announcement that we’re going to the schedule. We have not lost a firefighter to any local department in the last year and a half, almost two years now. Previously, we would lose three or four or five every year. So the retention part worked out the way we thought it would,” he said.
“We’ve had a lot of applicants from outside departments, which we’re really not used to either. But it’s been great. It’s been everything we thought it would be, and we’re just excited for our firefighters to have that home life balance. They’re going to have an extra day of rest, three days off, after a busy shift.”
To fund the new hires, the city commission approved a fire assessment fee last year, requiring property owners to have their homes assessed annually. The fee can increase by up to 2 percent each year.
Before the new shift has even launched, the commission is set to discuss its first rate increase for the upcoming fiscal year 2026-2027.
The public will have a chance to weigh in on raising the fee from $105 per home to $107.10 Tuesday night, as well as a 1-cent increase — from 56 cents to 57 cents — for every $1,000 of improvements made on their homes.
The city reports this rate increase will lead to $6.3 million, up from the $6.1 million that they expected to get from the first fee rate that went into effect Oct. 1, 2025.
In the meantime, the department is ready to go, with nearly all of the new hires set to be sworn in next week.
“I’ve been here going on 39 years now,” Walls said. “We’ve never come close to ever sworn in 33 people at one time. So it’s a historic night for us and we’re really excited about it.”
The public hearing on the fire assessment fee is scheduled for 6 p.m. during the regular city commission meeting.
More information about the fire assessment fee is available on the city’s website.