Norwich — There was not much in the 190-page fire services study released Tuesday that veteran city and fire leaders haven’t heard, proposed or complained about for years, several aldermen and chiefs said.

But they say it likely took outside eyes and expertise to put it together in a report, based on detailed data, interviews with fire leaders and members, aldermen and city officials. The McGrath Consulting Group presented its report to the City Council Tuesday in a two-hour meeting.

“That study literally was no surprise,” Alderman William Nash, a member of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said Wednesday. “Not one single thing was a surprise. There was nothing in that study that I have not been talking about over the last 12 years. So now it’s just up to the council to decide how we’re going to approach this and adopt into our culture.”

The council on Tuesday referred the study to its Public Safety Committee, which will meet next on March 10. The committee will have little time if it wants to recommend changes in the upcoming city budget. City Manager John Salomone is scheduled to present his initial budget to the council April 5.

The report repeatedly cited the long-running “tensions” between the city’s five volunteer fire departments and the one paid department that covers the central city and urban areas. The McGrath group, which included several members with decades of experience in paid and volunteer departments in other states, said the city departments must become more integrated, with uniform training, equipment, communications and equipment.

McGrath recommended the city hire a department-head level fire commissioner to oversee all six departments, integrate training, equipment, applications for new members and policies. The group also said the city must address badly antiquated communications systems, radios and dispatch equipment and records' policies.

In addition to training together to foster integration, the study recommended the city paid department automatically respond to all structure fires in volunteer districts, and that the closest volunteer department respond to all structure fires in the paid fire district.

Nash said three times he proposed a fire commissioner to get the six departments on the same page and was rebuffed each time.

Fire chiefs interviewed Wednesday said they have been pleading for the City Council to address the dispatch equipment problems for years as well. But the cost and complexity of the issue always put it on the back burner.

“You can fix anything with money,” Yantic volunteer Fire Chief Frank Blanchard said.

For Yantic, the report urged the city to install a diesel exhaust ventilation system, another long-standing health and safety issue.

“I have been putting that in my vehicle request list for years,” said Blanchard, who will mark his 20th anniversary as chief this year. “I listed it as health and safety issue for the firefighters, in bold letters.”

The volunteer chiefs complained Wednesday that they did not receive the report until shortly before Tuesday’s council presentation and haven’t had time to digest it. Laurel Hill volunteer Fire Chief Aaron Westervelt said that given the hundreds of hours volunteer departments worked to compile information for the report, he hopes the council gives the volunteer chiefs a seat at the table when decisions are made.

Public Safety Committee Chairman Alderman Joseph DeLucia said he has read the report three times thus far and said it will be an agenda item for the committee “every meeting from here on out.”

DeLucia said there are three immediate priorities: fixing the dispatch problems, getting all fire chiefs to meet monthly to start the integration process and tackling the human resources issues, such as standard applications and promotion practices.

Public Safety Committee member Alderman Mark Bettencourt said the council should try to put money in the capital budget to tackle the dispatch system problems and try to get estimates for the cost. He said he always thought the fire system “lacked a unified command structure” and maybe the proposed fire commissioner would solve that.

“We have to tackle one thing at a time,” Bettencourt said. “It’s a lot. The only way we can do it is one at a time. We’re coming up in budget season, we certainly don’t want to wait another year before we make any implementation.”

City Manager John Salomone said he may put money in the capital improvements budget to start to address the dispatch problems, although the city has no cost estimates for the project. And he hopes to receive direction soon from the council on whether to support the fire commissioner position, to including funding for that in the budget.

“That’s going to be a tough sell,” Salomone said. “I haven’t added any positions like that since I’ve been here.”

c.bessette@theday.com