February 17, 2005

Fire squad plan foresees budget rise to enhance service

By Lauren Heaton

After seven months of evaluation, Miami Township Fire-Rescue’s first strategic planning team has determined that the fire department needs a boost to continue providing professional emergency, prevention and environmental protection services to the community.

Among the department’s many needs for setting a sustainable course for its future are to recruit and maintain quality members, secure a bevy of new fire-rescue and emergency service vehicles and increase the operating levy, the team wrote in a strategic plan, which was released at the Miami Township trustees’ meeting Feb. 7.

The trustees will comment on the plan at their next meeting, Wednesday, Feb. 23.

Before delving into a strategic plan, the team’s first task was to establish a Fire-Rescue mission statement asserting the department’s intention to provide “superior fire protection and prevention, rescue and emergency medical care to the residents of and visitors to Miami Township, Yellow Springs and Clifton” and to “offer opportunities for volunteerism and professional growth” for its members.

The team then identified six major departmental goals over the next five years, including to identify and address personnel needs, upgrade the fleet of vehicles, enhance the physical facilities, strengthen the department’s fiscal health, improve community relations and enhance emergency response operations and preparedness.

Each goal in the plan is broken down into steps needed to complete the mission as well as the budgetary support needed to fund the process.

Altogether, the fire department foresees the need for a budget increase of $175,000, to $560,000 from the current budget of $385,000, according to the plan. The increase represents a minimum property tax increase to 4.6 mills from the current 3.8 mills, the plan states.

The most important mission listed in the strategic plan is maintaining the safety and wellness of the department’s volunteers and maintaining the department’s all-volunteer nature, Fire Chief Colin Altman said during the Township trustees’ meeting last week.

The department has faced challenges maintaining adequate volunteers, while at the same time having to meet the intensified training standards for staff and volunteers, Altman said.

Fire-Rescue hopes to address personnel needs by increasing leadership and training opportunities for volunteers, improving recruitment and retention efforts through advertising and enhancing direct benefits for personnel, the strategic plan states. The department also hopes to use more paid staff to supplement available volunteers. The cost to fully address these issues is estimated at $36,000, according to the plan.

The most costly, and according to Altman, most critical, part of the strategic plan includes maintaining the department’s fleet of vehicles.

The optimal replacement schedule includes replacing in the next 10 years a total of 12 vehicles, one of which is 35 years old, for just over $1 million, according to information in the plan. The list of replacements in the plan includes a fire engine, two tankers, two medics, three staff vehicles and a $500,000 quint engine.

The fire department had hoped to start a more gradual replacement schedule in 2000, but the Township reduced the fire levy from 4.6 mills to 3.8 mills that year, preventing the squad from purchasing or planning to purchase new vehicles, Altman said.

In addition to these capital costs, the department also declared its current facilities, originally built in 1955, inadequate for the squad’s daily needs and recommends significant renovations or relocating the fire station, the plan states.

The firehouse, on Corry Street, was designed to accommodate older model vehicles and does not properly house modern equipment, according to the plan.

The plan also claims that the living quarters for overnight staff are “substandard.”

“We operate state-of-the-art paramedic ambulances out of a space designed for smaller converted hearses. We have clearly outgrown our fire station,” the plan states.

The plan calls for a professional assessment of the current firehouse’s ability to fulfill the department’s needs, at an estimated cost of $3,200, and a study of the Yellow Springs area to determine an optimal spot to relocate the station. The facility needs could be financially addressed by a one-time levy or a bond issue, the plan states.

The goal of improving the department’s fiscal health could be addressed by developing better financial strategies for replacing equipment and making sure the staff remains volunteer based, the plan states. The plan also suggests that the department develop additional revenue streams by offering emergency training courses and charging fire inspection fees.

In order to improve the department’s community relations, the plan recommends that Fire-Rescue utilize advertising, the media, newsletters and community events to highlight department personnel’s achievements. The plan also calls for developing a community education team to enhance recruitment efforts and the department’s programs. Improved community relations efforts would cost an estimated $7,500 per year, according to the plan.

The department hopes to accomplish its last goal of improving emergency operations through a mixture of efforts, the plan indicates.

The plan calls for increasing the number of people trained as paramedics by offering financial incentives and hiring part-time paramedics. The department also hopes to streamline its fire scene operations by moving to the Greene County 800-megahertz radio system, which, according to the plan, would allow for a broader spectrum of intra- and interdepartmental communication. Increasing safety of personnel through regular training and strengthening organizational development is also part of operations improvement, which comes to a total of $170,000 over the next 5 to 10 years, according to the plan.

The eight-member planning team consisted of Altman, Assistant Fire Chief Denny Powell, firefighters and EMTs Jim Bohlin, Gayden Fite, Aimee Maychack and Mike Stoner, safety officer Jack Lebold and community member Diane Petzold. The team will continue to work to make changes in the plan in accordance with the goals of the Miami Township trustees and the community.

The plan comes at a time of fiscal conservation for the Township due to pending state budget cuts that will decrease Ohio township budgets by 30 percent over the next six years, Township trustee Chris Mucher said.