07-05-09, Bruce Philpott Comments on Volunteer Firefighters

If all of the paid fire departments in the state of California staffed their engine and truck companies with one reserve or volunteer firefighter, taxpayers would save about $ 1 billion per year. It has the added benefit of developing stronger community ties with a strong sense of pride, etc., but as long as the fire union is as powerful as it is, only those cities and counties that are driven by economic necessity will be so inclined to support these programs. Having studied many municipal budgets, by utilizing fire reserves judiciously, many cities now teetering on insolvency would be able to reduce their General Fund expenditures to a level that is, once again, sustainable. But, as the Los Angeles Area Fire Chiefs wrote in their publication back in 1998, "Paid firefighters have become addicted to overtime". That addiction, coupled with the fire union's political power, has directly resulted in driving fire reserve and volunteer programs into extinction while contributing significantly to the demise of balanced municipal budgets. Each position that is staffed with a volunteer or reserve (who performs as well as the career ones) saves local taxpayers about $200,000 per year. Ten reserves equal savings of $2 million. For cities like Glendale, Pasadena and Burbank, 100 fire reserves would more than balance their budgets. Yet Burbank has demonstrated that it would rather shut down an entire fire station to help it balance its budget than to develop a community fire reserve corps. All politics is local and until the citizens and taxpayers realize how bad their city's financial picture is, there will be no change. Most local politicians have no idea about this opportunity. They only want to get the fire union's endorsement for their reelection bids. Citizens and taxpayers come second to this priority. 

My prediction is that within one or two years, many more cities, driven by economic necessity, will be left with no other choice but to follow the examples of the lead cities, who will demonstrate the financial and performance effectiveness of reserve programs. Card carrying union firefighters love to state that reserves or volunteers are not able to perform as well as their paid counterparts. It's always nice to remind them that there are several all-volunteer fire departments in this country that have higher performance ratings than 95% of all paid fire departments.

Bruce Philpott

P.S.: 72% of America's firefighters are volunteers