An email from the Kansas State Fire Marshall to the City of Coffeyville confirms that personnel costs for Hazmat reimbursement were altered for an incident that occurred in October of 2021. 

 

KGGF News filed an Open Records request with the City of Coffeyville and has obtained the email dated April 4 of this year sent from State Fire Marshall Doug Jorgensen to Stephanie Richardson with the City.  In the email, Jorgensen states “whoever filled out the workbook with the costs for reimbursement manually altered the totals on the personnel costs page.”  The alteration claimed double-time reimbursement for the incident.  All previous reimbursements requested single-time reimbursement.  At this point, it’s still unknown who altered those figures.

 

The email confirms the statement made by City Manager Mark Hall at this past Tuesday night’s City Commission meeting that reimbursement costs had been altered.  The email goes on to say that the State Fire Marshall was under the impression that the workbook was locked down and that figures could not be altered, but was wrong.  He said changes would be made in the next couple of days.  A statement from the State Fire Marshall’s Office released later this morning said corrections have now been completed to the reimbursement workbook. 

 

The conflict between the Coffeyville Fire Department and City has created division within the city since the firefighters union filed a grievance with the City more than a month ago concerning reimbursement for Hazmat calls.  The email from the Fire Marshall's Office can be seen here.