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Wednesday, February 8, 2012 |
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Reader Emails |
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Countywide Fire Rescue
By
John McNamara, President, Broward County Council of Professional Fire Fighters
Sunday,
May 2, 2010
After I read your article it became readily apparent that you must not of actually read the bill titled "Broward Independent Fire District." If you had, you would have realized that "Broward County Government" had nothing to do with the "Broward Independent Fire District." Matter of fact, the only thing Broward County had in common with the bill is the name 'Broward' and the fact that in order to participate in the 'district' your governmental entity (i.e. municipality) must be geographically located within Broward County.
While it would be extremely lengthy and verbose to explain in detail within this email the exact intent and design of the bill, I will give you a synopsis of what we are trying to accomplish. You may actually be surprised what this plan could actually do for the residents of Broward County, including Margate. I would love the opportunity to discuss with you this particular topic so that you can make a more informed report about the issue in the future.
The "Broward Independent Fire District" (Local Law Bill) is designed to create a alternative funding mechanism to fund fire protection and emergency medical services - on a voluntary basis. There is no requirement that any municipality participate in the 'district.' The 'district' is designed to allow any governmental entity currently providing fire-rescue services to participate within 'a district' or 'sub-district' on a voluntary choice through a referendum vote by the residents within Broward County and then by the residents with the municipality considering the voluntary participation.
The idea behind the bill was to provide a medium by which governmental entities currently providing fire-rescue services could voluntarily merge their services with neighboring cities, thereby creating a "quasi-regionalized fire-rescue system" that would reduce the redundancies within the system and the duplication of services that currently exist within all agencies providing fire protection and emergency medical services.
One might not be aware of this but Broward County has 31 municipalities; 20 Fire-Rescue Departments (18 career - 2 volunteer); 14 dispatch / communication centers; almost 100 fire stations and over 2500 fire-rescue personnel throughout Broward County. This system design has created several redundancies and duplications of services that are costing taxpayers much more than is needed to provide an efficient fire-rescue service delivery system. I would be more than happy to present to you several examples of the duplications and redundancies if you would like.
Furthermore, back in 2002 the residents of Broward County overwhelmingly supported an amendment to create a "Fire-Rescue Services Council" that was tasked with creating a plan to provide (1) closest unit response & (2) common communications. While we have improved in the area of communications, the 'common' part is still not seem-less and not all entities are participating. As far as the "closest unit response" - we still do not do this. Why? Again, I would be happy to explain this to you in complete detail if you would like the information.
I would also like to point out that while the bill did create another "taxing authority / district," it contained a provision that required any participating governmental entity to reduce their "ad-valorem and non ad-valorem" millage rates by an equal or greater amount in order to off-set the millage rate of the 'district' (a.k.a. tax-swap provision). The idea of more than one entity creating a 'sub-district' with neighboring entities and in turn sharing the cost of delivering the service to the residents of those areas and decreasing the duplication of those services could easily decrease the cost to the taxpayer while improving the delivery of service they currently receive.
Finally, I want to leave you with this: the creation of this bill did not advocate that one way to deliver the system is better than another; it did not advocate having one "county-wide" service. Rather, a mechanism to allow governmental entities - on a voluntary basis - to merge services with one another and reduce the costs of those services while providing equal or greater service. There are entities out there that could benefit from regionalizing their fire-rescue delivery systems and still be in control of how those systems are designed, delivered, and paid for.
Mr Drummond - the Broward County Council of Professional Fire Fighters is made up of 10 Local Unions affiliated with the International Association of Fire Fighters. Yes, we do lobby on behalf of the members we represent. But your characterization that the residents of Margate should be concerned about our organization or me as the President is a little disingenuous when you have never met me or had a conversation with me. I would love the opportunity to discuss with you any issue that impacts the fire rescue service, including this one if you so choose. I look forward to hearing from you in the future.
John McNamara, President Broward County Council of Professional Firefighters
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