Toronto Fire Chief Jim Sales says his service has endured a “challenging budget year” in 2014 in the wake of new budget cuts that came into effect Monday.

The cuts — including decommissioning four fire trucks, closing a fire station near Runnymede Rd. and cutting 84 firefighters — were made after analyzing data gathered in 2013. Before the final analysis was made, three of the trucks were put on hold and only funded for six months, with interim funding chipped in for the next six months.

“We looked at building the best option we could with the 2014 budget, understanding the fiscal challenges we were under,” Sales told a Tuesday news conference. “We looked at years of data, call volumes, response times and looked at the best option to meet our budget target with the least impact to service, response times, servicing the public and safety for our fire staff.”

On a positive note, Sales said, the service has hired 25 new staff in 2014 while extending the contracts of 75 employees. Additionally, Toronto Fire Services plans a classification change which will reduce its annual insurance premiums by $22.5 million.

Sales said the service will monitor response times to gauge the effect of the trucks being taken off the road.