What is Your Agency Doing to Survive in Today's Political Climate? The Second in a Series of Discussions about what your agency is doing to survive

In the first of this series we asked the question:
What steps has your department taken this year to demonstrate to the public you serve that your agency is operating effectively, and cost efficiently?

The posted responses to date clearly show that many agencies are aware of the need to keep taxpayers and the general public informed about what services we provide to them. It is ever more vital to do so as the fire and emergency services in this nation are facing the most serious funding and operational issues of several generations. Please continue to add your comments to that discussion as well as this one

This discussion is the second in a series of sharing discussions on how fire and rescue agencies and the people who serve in them can survive in today’s real world.
I look forward to your participation.
Ron
Today’s question is in 3 parts:
1. Has your agency experienced loss of revenue and/or reduced staffing in the past 2 years?
2. If so, what steps have labor and management taken, together or separately, to modify tactics and operational strategies to compensate for those losses that will help assure safety for personnel as well as the public.
3. If operational and tactical changes have been made, has your agency formally advised the public and your elected officials about those changes?

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on October 11, 2009 at 4:57pm

We have had our staffing reduced and have lost a ladder company due to the budget issues. The mayor wanted cuts and the city hired a person who would make the cuts. Despite the cuts though, the new chief has been open to communication and also told the mayor, these cuts were the absolute max where cuts could be made without seriously jeopardizing public safety. The chief worked along with the union and kept the union abrest of the issue at hand and by working together, agreed to the cuts to the ladder company.

Our ladders carried the jaws units and also responded to CO alarms among the traditional duties. I work at the station where the truck was cut and we have had our workload increased as an engine company. We rearranged the pump to carry the jaws and have also responded to CO calls and our inspection workload increased by a third. For response, it does take longer for a truck company to get to our area, so the engine companies will be operating on their own for awhile. However, we have worked interchangebly between company tasks, so in that area not much has changed. We still throw ladders, we will do search and so forth before a truck company getting on scene.

Operationally, we will call in for another engine company if needed, but the impact on the public means it will take longer to get to another emergency if we are out on a fire scene. Our operations have not changed much, but we do see an increase in off duty chief officer's responding to scenes. This also helps in the event another emergency occurs that there is a chief officer who shouuld be able to respond there. I forgot to mention that if a battalion chief is sick or on vacation we will go down to one bat for the city, whereas we had 2 bats, one for the east side one west.

Since our operations haven't really changed we didn't make a formal notification to the public. The elected officials are aware and the chief has made them aware, also saying this was the most we could cut. We will be putting in for the SAFER grant to get back to full staffingand the city did state they would commit to the requirements if we get it.

What has hurt us though was when the chief was told to cut so much, he was also told that all departments would be cutting the same. Come budget time, it was revealed that the ONLY department to give something up was the fire department, whereas all other city agaencies had budget's increased.