Another Fire Department Facing 50% Staffing Cuts

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Cole on November 8, 2009 at 7:29pm

Mutual-aid was NEVER meant to solve another communities politcal problems, or impose their budget short-falls on the services of another department. It would seem the department they are counting on is just as minimally staffed as this one. Always expect the politicians to show the numbers to make it seem the firefighters are blood-sucking the city dry. How about a new approach? If the politicians are so damned community and civic-minded, then THEY should serve without any salary, or benifits! It doesn't take any degree of ability to sit on council, they can be infirmed and do it.

Usually it's the idea of some hardware-store owner -mayor or councilman who becomes an instant expert on fire protection and labor negotiaitons. Not too many years ago it was THE fashionable thing to do for a politician...or a wanna-be politician to pose with the local firefighters and show their alligence with the communitie's first responders, to make themselves look to be with the 'good guys'. NOW they wanna gut every contract, and in the case of combination department's, force the volunteer group to take on all the responsibility. In many communities, the reason for combination departments is the demographics locally don't provide for a large enough volunteer group, or an acceptable response time, or both.

However it never makes sense ( to me0 when small departments such as this try to take every piece of apparatus on alarms, and staff each vehicle with only driver. Effeciancy is lost, big time. Operating ONE company, putting all three of the on-duty personnel on one first-due engine or Quint can provide a much improved service. But that isn't the issue here. The issue is that it seems locally, several people will be forced to the unemployment line, the fire protection, and first-due responder protection will suffer, the neighboring communitiy will be held responsible to double thier responses and bail-out this town. I highly doubt the 40% figure is acurate too.

These firefighter jobs are in no way safe anymore, and in fact you have a large amount of the public who could care less. If it DOES pass, then I can only hope the spared firefighters provide the community with what it deserves...much less fire protection. Sorry, but in NO way should the on-duty crews attempt to make up for the shortages. Give 'em what they want! Through a stream through the window and wait until whom ever finally shows up.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on November 8, 2009 at 8:48pm

This could be a ploy on the part of the city officials to re-negotiate the contract with the fire department, I don't know.

I do know that with the 3 or 4 person on-duty strength this department has made some mighty fine fire stops through the years.

And the closest mutual aid volunteer departments have at best a 10 minute response time to the city.

I hope the city officials pull their heads out and figure a way to keep what they have.

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on November 8, 2009 at 9:59pm

The city council is hoping that volunteers will step in to cover the manpower shortages. They also expect to tap surrounding volunteer departments for mutual aid resources.

There in lies the problem, they are "hoping" volunteers will step in. Sounds like another nice decision on a local council where the cart is placed before the horse and no solid plan has been established. Let's just cut FF and "hope" volunteers step up. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but the reason why you see more and more depts having career positions is because in many cases volunteers can't run the calls. Vollies still have day jobs, family and so forth, let alone the nagging problem of recruitment and retention of volunteers, this is really a poorly though out idea. I also agree with Jeff here, they should not solely be relying upon mutual aid. There probably was a reaso they had FT FF's, perhaps the tools need to be reminded why...unfortunately that is usually at the cost of someone else.

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on November 9, 2009 at 9:56am

The entire concept of mutual aid is contained in the word "mutual".
First of all, there has a be a formal mutual aid agreement between departments. They can be entered into and they can be nullified. I wouldn't rely on them solely.
Secondly, why would I want to enter into an agreement that I know is going to place alot more wear and tear on my firefighters, my equipment and my taxpayers. THIS is NOT mutual aid; it's using what isn't your's to use.
It is tantamount to attempting to siphon off fire service from someone else without paying or repaying.
I'm a strong proponent of mutual aid, but it is a partnership.
Someone like Joe needs to educate that backwards city council on finance and on mutual aid.
It doesn't work the way that they want it to.
TCSS.
Art

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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on November 9, 2009 at 11:19am

Recently, the large city(1M) around here was going o approve a large residential development. But the small city(35K) was going to end up being first due because of automatic aid agreements. The small city has threatened, and probably would, pull out of this agreement if they were forced to supply emergency services without getting the tax-base from this development.

I would think that the surrounding communities there would view this the same. Aid agreements need to be symbiotic and not parasitic.

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on November 9, 2009 at 11:56am

Here is an interesting article from last week.
It makes perfect sense.
I have been saying for years that we need to tear down boundaries and focus on quickest delivery of services.
For the Regiser-Mail: http://www.galesburg.com/news/x235896951/New-fire-protection-option...

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Permalink Reply by Capt 723 on November 11, 2009 at 11:25am

I agree this is for the better but I wonder about...

Is the vol. dept still going to be dispatched on the call in addition to the GFD? Is the vol. dept struggling already or this only because they are some distance away from the residences in question? I am assuming here that the vfd neighbors are not as busy as the GFD and we all know what happens when you train and train and never 'do it' for real, just a thought.

Will the vfd dept lose the tax revenue or are the homeowners expected to pay for this protection from the GFD in addition to their normal tax assessment?

Again, I am not disagreeing with anything here...I am intrigued by the idea.

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on November 11, 2009 at 6:48pm

We have a great mutual aid relationship in this corner of the state.
Interim Chief Tom Simkins has always been a forward-thinking guy and has nothing but quality of service at heart.
GFD will respond initially. The VFD will also be paged as well. Basically, Galesburg will take care of business until the VFD gets there. No loss of tax dollars, no charges for services and no boundaries will change.
Weird, huh?
But true.

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Permalink Reply by Capt 723 on November 11, 2009 at 7:50pm

We have pockets here that could pull this off too, but there are also areas where it might come to blows before they could agree to disagree.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on November 11, 2009 at 8:12pm

As I read the article, people will contract with the city for protection outside the city. There will probably be some who will and some who won't. Keeping track of who is signed up and who is not could be a logistical nightmare for the 911 center.

That aside, I think the idea is excellent. We need to always consider the public first and foremost, and make sure they have the best service available.

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on November 11, 2009 at 10:49am

Here's another story of fire department/city budget woes.
Opening of new station put on hold and the building of another station is up in air.
From Bloomington, IL : http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/article_bbbfc45c-c031-11de-947...

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Permalink Reply by FETC on November 11, 2009 at 11:26am

When we hear about cuts the firefighter in us jumps immediately right on board with NO. I did some research and read this FD Annual Report and a paid 2007 consultant study. It appears they run about 1500 calls per year, not a fire based transporting EMS agency and out of the 1500 calls it was noted the matrix report stated a 1000 were EMS related. So from a response standpoint they must run as EMT first responders on every EMS call regardless of the nature or severity...

Now around here, fire departments that run 1000 TRUE fire calls without any EMS are pretty much all volunteer. They may have a paid chief or chief/code enforcement to justify his job but the troops are for the most part vollie. Then at the beginning, they start out with 1 or 2 daytime monday-friday firefighter positions and go back to 100% volunteer at night.

The services provided by 3 on duty personnel are at best limited but quick on paper, my suggestion to keep the manpower you have is buy an ambulance and start billing thus justifying your existance with monetary value of revenue generation. Fire based EMS does make smaller fire departments who have tax base issues less of a burden on the community tax base.

The mutual aid thing is not going to work, especially as the report discusses how this department has been allienated by the surrounding towns and removed from run cards. Mutual Aid is not meant to support my neighbors lack of tax base on a daily basis.

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