Tonight marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. I wish those of us observing this holiday an easy and meaningful fast. In this week’s letter I discuss a recent report by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) on the cost of municipal public safety services.
Three weeks ago, RIPEC published a Report analyzing the cost of municipal public safety (police and fire) spending. The RIPEC Report found that Rhode Island municipalities appear to devote larger budgets to public safety than other states, in some cases by a large margin. The Report did not analyze in detail why this is so, or how Rhode Island municipalities could improve the cost-efficiency of public safety protection without compromising safety or quality.
The RIPEC Report reminded me of studies the City of Providence performed during my service on the City Council. We looked into the factors driving the cost of the Providence Fire Department, and possible ways to reduce expense without compromising safety.
Before discussing the City’s 2016-17 findings, I will share my own appreciation for the stellar quality of our City’s emergency medical services (EMS) program. Earlier this summer, my wife Lauren had a medical emergency, and the professional skill and compassionate care she received from Providence Fire Department first responders was amazing. We always will be grateful.
With that said, the Providence Fire Department performs two critical functions, namely fire suppression and EMS. In a report prepared by the National Resource Network (the NRN Report), we learned that Providence has an excessive amount of fire suppression staffing. Over the years, buildings have become more fire-resistant, thereby reducing the number and severity of fires to which our fire fighters must respond. The increase in building safety reduces the number of fires, and with it the level of fire suppression staffing needed to ensure prompt responses.
The City Council studied this issue in greater detail, engaging MMA Consulting Group, which prepared this Draft Report concerning Providence Fire Department staffing. MMA looked at response times for fire alarms as measured against industry standards. The MMA Draft Report concluded that Providence could safely reduce fire suppression staffing in two ways: first, by consolidating fire protection on the East Side by closing the stations at Rochambeau and Humboldt Avenues, and second by removing two ladder trucks from the City’s fleet of fire protection vehicles. (Each ladder truck requires four fire fighters to operate, and each operating vacancy requires four fire fighters to fill, given that the position must be filled continuously during the 168 hour week with four shifts of 42 hours per week.)
Based on these findings, in 2017 the City negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with Local 799 that reduced minimum staffing by consolidating the East Side fire stations, which reduced “minimum staffing” from 94 to 88. The agreement did not implement the second proposed reform of reducing the fleet of ladder trucks by two. Implementing the second reform could have reduced the Fire Department budget by millions of dollars each year, or tens of millions of dollars over the past decade.
While I no longer serve in City government, I will encourage my representatives to perform an updated analysis of response times and Fire Department runs to test whether we need to maintain the current level of fire suppression staffing to ensure adequately prompt responses, or whether the reductions recommended by the MMA Report (or perhaps other reductions) can (or cannot) be achieved. The current collective bargaining agreement between the City and Local 799 expires next year.