THE BATTLE FOR FUNDING
I recently had the honor and pleasure to serve on the faculty at the Colorado Fire Fighters Training Academy held at Durango. Over a four-day period, the academy offered the usual valuable training sections and included a roundtable discussion among six faculty members, including me.
My friend Garry Briese, the executive director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, answered a question about the fire service’s chronic inability to attract sufficient revenues to perform its function. Garry drew a simple “input-output-effect” matrix on the chalkboard and gave his analysis of the problem using a comparison with the law enforcement community. His main point was that because everything the police do involves, ultimately, an effect on or feedback from society, they arc able to receive the necessary funding. 1 disagreed and respectfully said so.
My objective here is not to carry on my debate with Garry’s position but rather to make two points to the fire service in the hope that some discussion and progress may follow; a healthy debate will help to illuminate the problem.
First, the fire service’s constant breastbeating and wailing over the past 30 years over the funding the police have been able to obtain and keep are counterproductive. Comparing the fire service with the law enforcement community is like comparing apples to oranges. Law enforcement is a segment of our governmental table of organization. It is our agency of social control. Law enforcement enjoys vast powers and exercises tremendous discretionary authority. Police officers have the ability to search and seize, detain and arrest, and even use deadly force in carrying out their duties. They derive their status and power directly from the Constitution.
The fire service, on the other hand, has its origins in the public-spirited desire to save property from damage or destruction by fire. There is no governmental mandate that the fire service even exist. In fact, in the majority of jurisdictions, the fire service is a totally volunteer undertaking. Many communities have no fire service at all; others have fire services that are modernized versions of the colonial bucket brigade. No one should interpret these comments as a criticism of the volunteer fire service; they are a commendation and recognition of what has been accomplished with absolutely limited resources and person power.
The bottom line, however, is that the law enforcement segment of our respective communities sells and delivers a service people are willing to purchase. Personal safety from crime in all of its various components is a product people are willing to buy with their tax dollars. Crime and its various subcategories, such as domestic violence, child abuse, drugs, and so on, are foremost on the minds of the public.
Quite simply, fear of catastrophic loss from fire is not foremost on the individual taxpayer’s mind. Remember that in the worst-case scenario, if there is no fire department at all, the incident will resolve itself within a matter of hours when all the fuel is consumed.
Second, many of the departments represented at the seminar were deeply concerned with their ability to provide hazardous-materials response. Specifically, the costs of training, equipment, and upgrading current certification for haz-mat response are beyond the financial capability of many small departments.
The real answer, of course, is to regionalize these functions on a countywide or other geographical basis to spread the cost and responsibility. This is true whether the department is large or small, rural or urban. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with any department’s making the decision not to provide haz-mat protection. Hospitals, clearly in the business of saving lives, have made the decision not to provide certain services without any of the associated guilt that seems to haunt the fire service. For example, hospitals have closed obstetrical departments when it was not financially possible to properly provide that basic service. Similarly, many hospitals have closed their neonatal pediatric wards. Such services are now provided by a designated area hospital that has consolidated its resources and is able to fund the type of care involved.
The fire service should not be afraid to tell the customer that it cannot financially provide a particular level or type of service. These comments are also applicable to any department that cannot financially provide EMS or inspections and fire preventiontype services.
The customer will purchase with its tax dollars services it feels are appropriate. When the available dollars are not able to provide a full menu of services, prudent management dictates that only those services that can be delivered with the dollars available be provided. We are going to have to say “Sorry’’ to certain types of services we would like to provide but cannot afford.
The ability to obtain necessary funding is directly proportional to the public’s perception that it needs and will use the service it is buying. Until the fire service can convince the consumer that its product is one that the consumer needs to purchase, it will always have the notion that it is a stepchild to the law enforcement community in regard to available revenues.
