The Evolution of the Fire Service in Three Graphs

Last August I wrote a post entitled "Is Illinois Fire Service Model Economically Viable?" The post discussed recent trends that are pushing municipal governments toward the pursuit of alternative models for the provision of fire protection services. The primary trend, of course, is the growing cost to operate a municipal fire department. Personnel and pension costs are squeezing municipal budgets and threaten cuts to other services, or higher property tax bills for Illinois residents.

In particular, I wrote about plans by the Village of North Riverside to contract with a private company to provide fire protection. Not surprisingly, unionized firefighters are objecting vociferously to the privatization plans of the Village even though the arrangement would ensure that North Riverside's current firefighters are retained by the private company. North Riverside believes that transferring fire protection services to a private company could save taxpayers $750 thousand during the upcoming budget year. That's big money.

The post also discussed how mandates forced on municipal governments by the state have played a large role in driving up the costs to operate a municipal fire department. Included within the post was a list of 29 legislative enactments that were essentially giveaways to the politically powerful statewide firefighter union. Make sure to take a look at the list and consider it in the context of the charts below. It's quite astonishing.

Unionized firefighters actively work on campaigns, make substantial political donations to candidates, and year after year see their legislative agenda advance through the General Assembly. And the firefighter legislative agenda costs money. Taxpayer money.

The statewide firefighter union is presently working overtime to convince the General Assembly to expand collective bargaining rights to include fire department staffing levels. What this means is that if a bargaining unit and management disagree on how many firefighters are needed, the issue goes before an arbitrator. If the arbitrator sides with the union, then the municipality is compelled to hire more firefighters than the elected officials and their management teams, including the fire chief, believe are necessary.

Just having the right to bargain over minimum manning exerts an upward pressure on fire department costs. Why? Because local bargaining units could use the threat of taking the issue to arbitration to win a concession or two from the municipality. If the municipality fears the prospect of losing an arbitration hearing and having to absorb millions of dollars over multiple years in unnecessary personnel costs, you can bet that they will trade something else to avoid the manning requirement. That something else likely costs money.

Firefighters argue that they should be able to bargain over minimum manning requirements because appropriate manning and staffing issues are a matter of safety for the firefighters and the public. But manning and staffing levels are a prerogative of elected officials and their management teams. The last thing that municipal officials desire is to expose their residents to danger and risk because of an understaffed fire department. Consequently, fire departments are not understaffed in Illinois. How can we be sure? For starters, where is the ongoing media coverage about all of the lives lost and property damage incurred as a result of a fire department staffing crisis? This coverage doesn't exist. Why? Because there isn't a staffing crisis. We have plenty of firefighters in Illinois. And we appreciate what they do.

But what DO they do? The fire service has evolved tremendously over the last several decades. And here's some good news that often doesn't get reported. We don't need as many firefighters because we don't have as many structure fires. And that's a positive development. Fewer fires mean that residents are safer. It's a success story. But if there are fewer structure fires, why is the statewide firefighter union pressing so hard for the right to take manning and staffing levels to arbitration?

Job protection. It's that simple.

Vox published a terrific article about the changing nature of the fire service and what firefighters actually do. While I've linked to the article, I'm going to include three of the graphs from the article below because they tell the story quite effectively. After viewing the charts, ask yourself if we need a law that would empower fire unions and arbitrators to impose additional costs on taxpayers for the purpose of hiring more municipal firefighters.

The number of structure fires is declining:

While the number of paid firefighters has been increasing:

And the firefighters are mostly responding to medical calls and not structure fires:

Policymakers must recognize that the fire service has evolved and that fire departments might more appropriately be considered as "emergency service agencies." Combating fires will always be a component of the fire service. And communities have become very sophisticated in cooperating with each other through mutual aid agreements to ensure that sufficient fire suppression personnel and equipment arrive at the scene of a structure fire. But firefighting has become a secondary obligation. Medical responses are the primary obligation. And it's an important function.

The point of this post is not to somehow argue that firefighters don't do important things. They most certainly do. But the Illinois General Assembly needs to stop legislating as if the primary activity of the fire service is putting out fires with all of the attendant danger. It's expensive to taxpayers and no longer predicated in reality.