Madison Discusses Possible Solutions to Lifeguard Shortage, Liabilities
While beach weather has waned, conversations about Madison’s ongoing lifeguard shortage continues as plans are being made for the 2020 summer season. The inability to recruit or train enough waterfront certified guards continues to challenge Madison and surrounding communities.
In 2018, shortages in qualified individuals led to the town to employ beach monitors rather than lifeguards, though at the end of that season Beach & Recreation Director Scot Erskine reported a number of issues with that model to the Board of Selectmen.
The Beach & Recreation Commission recently received a risk management update from the town’s insurance carrier Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency (CIRMA). First Selectman Tom Banisch (R) said that the report focused on the increased liability the town took on by hiring lifeguards.
Banisch said he has also been in touch with Joey Barbera of CIRMA as the town assesses both its liability from an insurance standpoint as well as how to keep beaches safe for the public.
“If you have lifeguards, then you create a liability for the town,” said Banisch. “Because if something goes wrong, you’re liable for the actions of the lifeguard. If you don’t have a lifeguard, then you don’t have that liability. People in town are upset because they’re saying, ‘We don’t care about the liability, we care about the safety issue.’ And I understand that.”
Being able to recruit and maintain lifeguards has been the real difficulty the town has faced, both Banisch and Erskine said. Banisch said that the town still has money in the budget set aside for lifeguards, and also pays $15 an hour, which is more than what the state pays, he said.
The Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection warned early in the summer that shortages of lifeguards at state beaches could lead to some days being unstaffed. Erskine said that Hammonasset Beach State Park was one of those beaches that did not have lifeguards on duty during slower days.
Though Madison is not required to assign lifeguards to its beaches, according to an email from Barbera that Erskine provided to The Source, the town is continuing to seek ways to recruit and train lifeguards to provide coverage.
Banisch said some potential lifeguards, especially younger recruits, are scared away by the responsibility and liability of overseeing a large stretch of open water.
“There are stories of kids—17-, 18-year-old kids—being sued when something happens at a beach,” Banisch said. “Kids are saying, ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m not in for that.’”
Some other obstacles to finding lifeguards include difficulty training in saltwater and finding candidates who are willing and able to work the necessary hours, Erskine said. The Beach & Recreation Commission also had preliminary discussions about the possibility of having a head lifeguard to coordinate and oversee town lifeguards, according to Erskine, though Banisch said he thought those duties could be taken over by someone else already working in the Beach & Recreation Department.
Banisch said another solution he has proposed is to have one section of beach covered seven days a week, and inform the public that other parts of the beach will not be covered.
“You don’t want to have lifeguards four hours a day, three days a week,” said Banisch. “People don’t know what to anticipate. If we can say, ‘You’ll always have a guard on this beach, there will never be a guard on that beach’...I think that might be part of the solution.”
Erskine said that discussions so far have been very preliminary in nature, mostly covering issues already known and discussed. He said the commission is planning to further delve into possibilities and ideas for the future next month.