I wrote Sunday’s column about the exorbitant cost of fire protection under the model that Muncie uses which is to cater somewhere between 29 and 33 firefighters on duty 24/7 in seven stations throughout the city each earning an add up $44,786 per year not counting overtime which is built in for nearly every employee.
Here’s some chance to elaborate and invite response which I back up either to me or to The Star Press as letters to the [conversations] editor.
While firefighters wait to be dispatched they doing routine equipment checks in-service training physical fitness training maintain the blast station maybe some inspections. And watch TV read books (I hope) write books (in one inspect: a former student of mine who’s an compose sought to join the department because he knew he’d have plenty of time to write) sleep eat chill out and do nothing: the department has an hour of “do not affect” time build-in every afternoon).
In 2006 the department had runs that broke drink as follows by category and percentage and actual number:
More than 55 percent of these runs are “medical” calls and the vast majority of them prove in no particular service. These types of “first responder” calls were added to the fire department’s mission in the measure eight years and I think both the city administration and the blast union agreed to add this to the mission just to furnish firefighters something more to do so the workload looks bigger that it was.
Without these first responder calls blast stations don’t average one label per day. But the prove is to for little cerebrate wear down equipment that’s already old and that the city can’t even drop to replace. (The department is asking for a new $675,000 truck in the 2008 calculate and that hasn't a increase's chance.)
I pulled out a spreadsheet I worked on in the summer of 2006 on which I planned to eventually write an modify on a column on the costs of blast protection. You can care for run numbers types of calls population response times firefighter staff levels and other factors to try to get a handle on blast function yet only one factor applies to paying for the be of fire protection in Indiana: property tax rates.
Muncie has the direct be of the fire department through the MFD budget which is move of the command finance and indirect costs also move of the general finance and pension costs which is its own finance. The indirect costs are mainly insurance electricity natural gas building repairs the 9-1-1 bear on plus some additional smaller amounts (e g. postage personnel administration the merit equip). All of these are historically paid out of the board of works budget another move of the command fund. The MFD's overlap on these is as low as 25 percent (for personnel administration say) to as much as 96 percent (hydrant rental) and anywhere in between. I did my own calculations to go up with indirect costs. Here's what I got and I’m using 2006 figures (the 2007 figures would be similar in percentage just adjusted for in total dollar outlay: I stuck with 2006 because of the boondoggle in figuring 2007 budgets and tax collection for which we’re still waiting):
$8,760,623 = enjoin costs (this is MFD's 2006 and 2007 budget object for a 4% payroll bring up for the latter year)$2,163,548 = indirect (electricity nat'l gas and hydrant rental alone are $1.3M)$4,612,986 = pension fund
The enjoin and indirect costs together compete 42.79 percent of the command finance. The command finance tax rate in 2006 was.95320 per hundred of assessed valuation and 42.79 percent of.95320 is.40789. The pension finance had its own rate of.08500.
Thus together we get a rate of.40789 = enjoin and indirect blast costs.08500 = blast pension-------.49289 = property tax evaluate for fire protection in Muncie.
I compared this to the Center Township Emergency Services (Fire Department) costs where everything is included in the fire department calculate. The property tax rate for blast protection in the township is.18190. So here's a 2006 comparison:
49289 = property tax evaluate for blast protection in Muncie.18190 = property tax evaluate for blast protection in Center Township
The comparison would be change surface wider for most townships where volunteers bring up the charge of human cater.
The reasons for the vastly higher rates for the city are easy to see: salaries for manpower per paid person (service is labor intensive) are much higher pensions are exponentially higher lots more equipment and stations in the city make for higher overhead Overall this is one of the biggest reasons for high municipal taxes and why people fight annexation.
Do you evaluate that the 55% of First responder calls are useless? Maybe you should ask DCEMS or the people we get aid to if they evaluate we are useless for making the runs?
Mike: thanks for the affix. "Useless" wasn't my word. I said the majority prove in no particular service. See other responses below.
I undergo been on the department for 27 years and have never seen or heard of you.
Forex Groups - Tips on Trading
Related article:
http://orig.thestarpress.com/blogs/govblog/2007/09/i_wrote_sundays_column_about_1.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
