By RUSS OLIVO

WOONSOCKET —  Mayor Susan D. Menard on Tuesday interviewed four candidates who are vying to succeed outgoing Fire Chief Kenneth A. Finlay, whose retirement takes effect Saturday.

All of the potential successors are currently employed by the Woonsocket Fire Department, said Menard, who identified them as Deputy Chief Thomas Williams, Deputy Chief Marcel Bacon, Capt. Gary Lataille and Capt. Michael Richardson.
All four have been on a list of qualified contenders for the chief's job for about two years, according to Administration Director Michael A. Annarummo. Finlay was on the same list when Menard appointed him to succeed former Fire Chief Henry A. Renaud in April 2007.
Citing a continuing rift between Menard's administration and Local 732 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Finlay unexpectedly tendered his resignation Feb. 27, hours after a Superior Court judge cleared the way for the city to lay off 11 firefighters. The union, which had resisted alternative contractual rollbacks the administration was offering, went to court in attempts to block the layoffs, which the city argued were crucial to help make up for a $3.6 million loss in state aid.
A 31-year veteran of the WFD, Finlay, 52, is expected to start a new job on Monday as chief of the neighboring Cumberland Hill Fire Department , where he began his career as an on-call firefighter in 1973. Finlay will succeed longtime “I really wish the department could have come to a contractual agreement and I really wish I could have completed that task,” said Finlay. “I”m rather disappointed in myself that I wasn't able to accomplish that. I thought I could have been a better intermediary.”
Finlay said any of the four contenders for chief would make excellent choices to lead the department into the future. All are veterans of the fire department – Lataille with 24 years, Richardson, 27, Bacon, 28 and Williams, nearly 30.
But Finlay said the next chief will face serious challenges, including coping with a downsized workforce. With 11 layoffs and seven other positions vacant due to retirement, manpower has been slashed to 115 firefighters, and only 112 of those are assigned to staff four 28-member platoons. The numbers translate into more forced overtime in order to meet the staffing needs, said Finlay. Potentially, some firefighters could face 48 hours on the clock at a stretch before they are relieved, but so far fatigue and injury have not cropped up as issues.
Finlay also said he was worried that, as job losses mount during the current recession, more city residents will lose health insurance, cutting into revenues for rescue runs, which make up the lion's share of the fire department's emergency response.
“I'm concerned because when people get laid off their health care gets carried for only so long, but sickness and injury don't stop because they don't have health care,” said Finlay. “You might see revenues decrease because they just don't have coverage anymore. It's a predominant amount of our runs and a predominant amount of our budget.”
In order to be eligible to seek the chief's job, a city firefighter must have held the rank of captain for at least two years or be a deputy chief. It's also permissible to have been a captain for less than two years, provided the applicant has at least 21 years of total service on the department. The standards are set in the city's contract with the IAFF.
Those qualifications only get a candidate in the door, however. Under the personnel code, only candidates who are among the top five scorers on a qualifying exam may be considered by the mayor for the promotion to chief.
The former public safety director,  Annarummo said there was no qualifying exam available when the city looked to hire Renaud's successor in 2007. On the advice of area firefighting professionals, Annarummo said the city hired the chief of the North Attleboro Fire Department to develop a test, which was taken by Finlay and all of those who are currently vying to succeed him.
“I needed someone to help and I asked around and talked with people,” Annarummo said. “He provided some pertinent questions and some pertinent answers.”
Some see an inconsistency in the hiring procedures, which make the fire chief the only department head in the city whose hiring is governed, at least in part, by a union contract, even though he's not a member of the firefighter's union. Though Menard appears to be sticking with the tradition of promoting from within, some question whether the contract could legally impede the mayor's authority had she hired an outside professional to take over the department, as she did in September with the appointment of Police Chief Thomas Carey, a veteran of the St. Petersburg, Fla., police department.