What Goes Around Comes Around

When I started at the K.B.F.P.D. we did a great deal of maintenance and improvements to our equipment and our stations ourselves. We painted our stations, performed plumbing repairs, poured patios and the like. Over the years, the district has relied less on our labor for these types of projects and had contracted them out.

The theory was that projects were affecting response times, that they were taking away from inspections, training, pre-planning and the like and that our time was better utilized directly supporting our primary mission. That worked for me. I didn't miss having to keep an old ratty uniform around to paint in or bringing my extensive tool collection in to work for a project.

After a district wide staff officers meeting the other day, a memo came out stating that the capital improvement / maintenance fund has been all but eliminated and that if we want anything other than emergency maintenance done on our facilities, we will likely have to do it ourselves.

I read a post in a blog titled Two in - Two out regarding the same subject. Two in - Two out is written by a firefighter's wife and comments on the fire service from a spouses perspective. In this post, she laments about how her husband is not a landscaper, electrician, mechanic, carpenter etc, but is often required to perform these other tasks. She also makes the point that the city where her husband works has issued a similar policy, and that she finds it absurd.

I agree with most of her post in concept. However, in our culture (The K.B.F.P.D.),  there are some angles that need to be explored before taking too strong of a stance against this change in policy.

First of all, we have not lost a single position in the operations division of our district, nor have we taken a cut to wages or benefits. We have frozen all step raises and COLAs and we absorbed a pretty hefty increase in our medical insurance costs, but considering what some agencies are going through, we are doing well.

Second, our culture has always been one of making do with what's available to us. Making chicken soup out of chicken shit. That's what we do, that's what we have always done. I have seen departments pool their skills to build fire stations, apparatus and support vehicles. I have seen cesspool stations made livable by crews using materials stolen requisitioned from the county yards and sweat equity.

Third, I don't think anyone disagrees that our district is hurting financially. Tax revenues are down, costs are up. Typically, local governments fiscally lag behind the rest of the economy by six months to a year. If, the worst of the recession was actually a year ago, we (meaning the district) will be hit hardest right about now. Yikes.

Fourth, many of our younger firefighters and medics have little experience working with their hands. Many have had no other employment than going to college / medic school, working for an ambulance company and then working in the fire service.A little manual labor might be beneficial.

Finally, there is a lot of anti-public employee sentiment out there. Public employees have become the new whipping boys, often the targets of hit pieces in the printed media and the electronic media.. The Sept. 11 hero stuff has worn off, now firefighters and cops are often viewed as just another group of unionized public employees, lined up at the trough.Anything that we can do to correct this perception, the better off we will be.

Taking these factors into account, I guess I can tolerate picking up a paintbrush or a hammer. Trust me, I would rather have someone else do it, but for the money that they pay me, a few brush strokes ain't gonna kill me.

I do however, find it ironic that we are regressing to practices from the old days. It's funny what fiscal constraints can achieve.

While you're at it, drop in over at Two in - Two out, I think that you will like what you find.

Thanks for reading,
An appreciative Schmoe