Herald & Review, Decatur, Ill.
(TNS)
DECATUR — As Decatur Fire Chief Jeff Abbott sees it, there comes "a point in time where it's time to hand it off to the next people and let them run with it."
That time is fast approaching for Decatur's longtime chief.
Abbott announced on Monday plans to retire next month after more than a decade in the top job and three decades with the Decatur Fire Department.
His final day on the job, set for March 15, will be 30 years to the day after he started with the department. He's been fire chief since December 2014 and previously served as a lieutenant, captain and deputy chief.
Decatur City Manager Tim Gleason, in a statement, said that Abbott "is going to be tough to replace" while wishing him "all the best in this next chapter of life.” No announcement has been made on Abbott's replacement.
Abbott's tenure spanned three city managers. Not to mention a global public health pandemic.
Under Illinois' tier one pension system, which includes public employees hired before 2011, firefighters may retire with full pension benefits upon turning 50 with at least 20 years of service. This means that the tenure of fire chiefs is often no more than a few years.
But Abbott, 56, said he always had "ideas on what I thought would make the department a little bit better," which kept him going for all those years.
"There (were) always projects that I thought would make the job better for the firefighters," Abbott said. "And I thought that as long as I had goals and other things to accomplish that would make the job better for the people that are actually out there on the street doing the job, that I would keep doing it."
During his tenure, Abbott oversaw an $8.6 million plan to construct three new fire stations and renovate four existing ones. A new Fire Station 5 opened on West Mound Road in 2020, a new Fire Station 3 opened in Fairview Plaza in 2021 and a new Fire Station 7 opened in 2023.
The new stations replaced aging facilities that could often not accommodate modern firefighting apparatuses. They are also credited with improving response times in their respective coverage areas.
But Abbott told the Herald & Review that he considered the launch of a computer aided dispatch system his greatest accomplishment as chief. The system allows the department to quickly identify the closest station when a call for service comes in. Information is shared with the responding firefighters via mobile data computers in the fire apparatus. Before, the department would have to manually figure out which station was best equipped to take a call.
"It's not glamorous," Abbott said. "It doesn't rival building three new stations and stuff like that. But, internally, and what I think is the best for the guys, I think this is hands down, for me, the winner."
Abbott's tenure was not without its challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic was "definitely the worst thing I had to deal with administratively," he said, pointing to the challenges of adhering to public safety protocols given the congregate settings that are fire stations.
There was also significant labor strife, with city firefighters going more than three-and-a-half years without a new union contract at one point.
The long impasse had largely centered around the status of three fire inspector positions that former City Manager Scot Wrighton had chosen not to fill after the last three to hold the title retired in quick succession in 2020.
Wrighton had cited a desire to restructure how those duties are performed as part of a "modest" pension reform package. The issue led to a long impasse that almost ended with binding arbitration.
The city and union finally came to an agreement in the summer of 2023, which entailed the reduction of full-time inspector positions from three to two.
However, Gleason included funding for a third fire inspector position in his 2025 budget, effectively rendering the previous fight moot.
The department has also been short-staffed as retirements outpace new recruits. At the same time, calls for service continue to increase.
The department responded to a record 14,335 alarms in 2024, Abbott wrote in a memo to city council last month. He also noted, however, that it was the first time in a decade that there were no fire-related fatalities in the city.
"A problem that I've had, and I've seen my entire career, is that this is a city that was 95,000 at one point, and it's 70,000 now," Abbott said. "So, even though the territory keeps expanding, the population keeps dropping. And so the tax base keeps dropping."
"And that's always a challenge: How can you provide the best service, the best equipment, the best everything for the people who are doing the job when you have declining revenues and resources? And that's always been a challenge," he said.
Those questions will fall to the next chief.
It will be Gleason's first major appointment since returning as city manager last May. No matter who, he will be choosing from a new generation of leadership.
Last September, deputy chiefs Dan Kline and Jim Ohl retired on the same day after serving 30 years each with the department.
Current deputy chiefs Neil Elder, Toby Jackson and Brian Lockwood all started with the department on the same day in September 2004.
Though not a requirement, Decatur's fire chief has historically come from within the ranks of the department.
Abbott said that the department is "going to be in very capable hands," calling those ascending to top leadership spots "top notch."
"Everything I do is just trying to make the department a little bit better for the next guy," Abbott said. "And then the next guy picks up, and he makes it a little bit better."
According to city records, Abbott's base salary is $179,448. With 30 years of service, he will be entitled to an annual pension of $134,586 that will increase by a compounded 3% every year.
© 2025 the Herald & Review (Decatur, Ill.). Visit www.herald-review.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
