November, 2009

There are several topics relative to the fire department I would like to briefly review in this issue of the Profile.

BURNING – The Township Board passed new burning regulations this year. The revised ordinance limits open burning to two specific periods, one in the spring March 15 – May 15 and one in the fall October 1 – November 30. There will be no burning other than recreational fires allowed outside of these dates. The revised ordinance will be posted on line at plainfieldfire.org before it goes into effect this fall.

FIRE DEPARTMENT MASTER PLAN – The Township Board has adopted a Master Plan for the fire department consisting of ten goals. The goals are: Minimize death and injuries due to fire -Minimize direct and indirect losses due to fire - Minimize death and suffering for people experiencing sudden illness, accidents, or injury - Improve the community’s ability to avoid, prevent and appropriately react to fires and medical emergencies - Provide effective leadership and management by utilizing technology and management systems - Minimize deaths, injuries, and property loss due to natural, technological and weapons of mass destruction related disasters - Improve employee health and safety - Provide cost effective fire protection and emergency services - Protect local ecosystems and Optimize citizen satisfaction

The Department’s members have worked very hard to not only develop these goals but also to identify current and potential future weaknesses that would prevent the department from maintaining a quality level of service. The next challenge is finding the resources to do so provide service.

TAXES/GRANTS – Recently the Grand Rapids Press ran a small article saying that a request to apply for a grant from FEMA was rejected by the Township Board. That was correct; I asked the Board if they wanted the fire department to invest the time necessary to prepare a grant request for two additional firefighter positions. The additional staff would be filled with part-time employees who would be assigned to each station 24/7. They declined because they felt we did not have the funds for the matching, probably, 50% required to receive the grant. The Press reported that this would require a 25% increase in taxes. That was an error; what was stated in another request was that .25 mills (one quarter of 1% of the taxable value of a property) would help to offset the grant match.

This has prompted me to provide a short lesson in where your tax dollars go. For every dollar you pay in taxes it is divided as so: 40 cents goes to local schools, 16 cents goes to the State, 15 cents goes to Kent County, 12 cents goes to Kent Intermediate School District, 10 cents goes to Plainfield Charter Township, 5 cents goes to GR Community College, and 2 cents goes to the Kent County Library. The person who owns a home worth about $240,000 pays one dollar a day for the services provided by Plainfield Charter Township, approximately 37 cents of which goes for the operation of the fire department.

We have aggressively sought grants for the past several years. We have been fortunate enough to receive several over the past five years totaling close to $500,000 dollars with a required match from the Township of less than $40,000. These grants have provided protective clothing, self contained breathing apparatus, technology for training, computer software and other items that would have been purchased by the Township had we not received the grants.

COST CONTAINMENT – The Plainfield Fire Department has always tried to be conscientious about cost. Our staffing model has saved nearly 2.5 million dollars since it was implemented in 2003. We have worked to save energy costs, we are making every effort to minimize overtime, we did not fill a fulltime position that became vacant due to a firefighter leaving and, unfortunately, we found it necessary to eliminate an administrative position to help balance the budget. All of the employees of the fire department understand that times are tough for many people and we are doing our best to contain cost.

CENTRAL DISPATCH – In 2007 I wrote about the need for improvements in our dispatch system; there has been progress in this area. The Kent County Central Dispatch Authority is in the process of selecting software that will be placed in all of the dispatch centers. This and centralized call taking should significantly improve how we are dispatched and will be operational in 2010.

MUTUAL AID – With the addition of the new Computer Aided Dispatch software and the adoption and implementation of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS), which the fire departments are working on, mutual aid, will be easier to receive and give. The fire service has a long standing tradition of helping one another out on big fires or responding in those pockets where are neighbors have a hard time responding in a timely manner. My fear is that as the budget noose tightens more and more communities will see mutual aid as a panacea and try to “do more with less”.

Unfortunately this is not an everyday solution. If we cannot consistently conduct operations on a single family residence without requiring mutual aid then we are not really providing fire protection. I think if we are going to resort to that type of mentality we need to look at forming a fire authority which could systematically coordinate the use of the resources for an area while equalizing the cost of fire protection to all who benefit from it. This is also something that the fire chiefs are looking at