Lately, it seems like more people are complaining about their taxes than ever before. Why is that? Are taxes really too high? Do you pay too much for taxes? If you pose this question to 10 people, at least 8 of them will immediately answer, without any hesitation, “Yes, my taxes are way too high.” Everyone wants lower taxes, including many of our own members. But at what price? Do citizens ever really associate the services they receive with the amount of their tax bill?
What if you ask the question: “What do you receive in return for paying taxes to you local city or township”? Those same 10 people would take a few moments before giving an answer. The common items they would list are things like police protection, garbage pickup, fire department, EMS, water and sewage, parks and recreation, road maintenance, etc.
After these obvious items, it gets harder and harder to come up with things paid for or provided to you from your tax dollars. Try and list 25 services that you get for any of your tax dollars. Most people can’t do it. At this point, most people usually just lump everything else into the catch phrase of “government waste”.
So, when there is a problem balancing the city or township budget, cuts in expenses are usually suggested rather than considering raising taxes. After all, every politician knows that people do not want an increase in their property taxes and if will be much easier to get re-elected to office if they find other solutions to their budget shortfalls.
When it costs more to make a product such as a car or appliance, they simply raise the cost of the product.It’s not as easy when the cost of a public service increases. They either have to raise taxes to cover the increase or make cuts somewhere to shift or eliminate the expenditures in one area of the budget to free up money to cover the increased in another area.
Now back to local services and taxes. Everyone has garbage that needs to be picked up, everyone has water and sewage needs, and everyone uses the local streets. But only a very small percentage of the people in your community actually use the visible services of the fire department. That’s one of the reasons why our fire departments seem to be in the bull’s eye for local budget cuts.
Unfortunately for us, that is one of the pitfalls of being a public servant. Some taxpayers and elected officials end up placing the blame on us (firefighters) for causing higher taxes. These are the people that think we are paid too much, that we get too much time off work, and that our fringe benefits are too high. They want to blame our pensions and our health insurance plans for putting too much strain on the budget.
The politicians see a simple solution to reducing costs-just eliminate bodies. That takes care of salaries and fringe benefits and pensions in on easy swipe. It’s because of this type of thinking that almost every career fire department in the state has seen a reduction in overall staffing or daily staffing during the last five years. When will it stop? What can you do to stop the bleeding?
Does anyone outside of the fire service really understand what our job is all about? Whose fault is this? Well, maybe it’s our fault! Are we doing enough to promote ourselves? Outside of the fire station, firefighters are basically humble people. We rarely blow our own horns or talk a lot about how difficult our job really is. It’s only when our jobs are in jeopardy or when staffing reductions threaten our safety, that we try to educate our citizens and elected officials about what we do. It is becoming very apparent that you can’t wait until a budget crisis hits to start educating your elected officials and the citizens of your community. If you wait until then, it’s usually too late and positions in your department will get eliminated.
Somehow, we have to find a way to get people to understand that firefighting is a dangerous, laborintensive profession in which time is the single most critical factor and that if you don’t have enough firefighters, properly trained and equipped, on scene quickly, people die and property will be lost. We also have to convince them that, without timely fire-based EMS, people will die. And we have to show them the reasons they need firefighters to respond to hazardous materials incidents. It’s obvious that most people have already forgotten our role as the initial responders to terrorism incidents or other major catastrophes that may occur in their community.
The IAFF has attempted to address this issue with the Fire Ops 101 program.
(http://www.iaff.org/ET/FireOps101/index.htm) This program is designed to put elected officials or other prominent citizens of your community through some of the daily tasks associated with our jobs. You should consider setting up a similar program in your community. If the elected officials have a better understanding about what we do, they may stop coming after our jobs. They may realize that there are other areas they can cut in the budget that are less important to the safety of the citizens. They may even find the intestinal fortitude to increase taxes to maintain or improve the capabilities of their fire department!
In addition to the Fire Ops 101 program, it’s becoming apparent to many of us that we also need to give serious consideration to start spending a lot more time educating the general public about fire safety and our profession. It’s no longer effective just being the nice firefighter that lives next door or simply viewed as the firefighters that raise money for charity.
We need to figure out ways to talk about what we do and what the ramifications are if we aren’t given the staffing or equipment to do it. It has to be an on-going process. Everyone has to be involved in this. It’s not simply a matter of telling your local union executive board to go negotiate a pay raise, improve benefits, maintain health insurance, and oh, by the way, make sure you maintain our staffing levels. There is no way they can do it without all of our help, each and every day.
When we are on-duty, it is very easy for us to let people know about the importance of our profession. Every run we go on gives us the best opportunity to show people what are jobs are all about. The actual recipients of our service are the most obvious people we interact with. Their reaction to the service we provide to them and their family will be shared with their relatives and neighbors on countless occasions long after we have forgotten all about the incident. That’s why it is so important to be friendly and professional on every run.
But what about the numerous other people we interact with in the course of our daily activities? What do we look like to motorists and pedestrians whose paths we cross on the way to an emergency or when we return to the station? Do they see us as skilled professionals or crazy daredevils? What about bystanders and spectators at the scene? How do we treat them and how are we perceived by them? What about the other agencies that we interact with, like the cops, the DPW, the water department, doctors, nurses? Are we doing enough to gain their admiration, respect, and support? When we are on-duty, we have a positive impression, felling perception, and memory wherever we are and with whomever we encounter. What about all of the non-emergency contacts you make throughout the shift? Are we providing our best image when we shop at the grocery store, visit the ice cream shop, when we visit the school or street fair, or when we participate in some other community event? More people see us in these situations then those that see us fighting fires.
Remember, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.
We also need to spend more of our time doing public educations programs. This is an area that many departments and union members have cut back on at the very time that they should be increasing these programs. This is a void that can be filled by the members of your local union. Every Local should have a speaker’s bureau and a public education committee. Every civic organization and community group is looking for speakers for their meetings. These are perfect settings to explain to people what firefighters do. In addition to educating them on fire safety practices they should know about, tell them about firefighting, EMS, haz-mat, and all the other ways we provide essential services to them for their tax dollars. Show them pictures, give examples, explain why you need adequate staffing to do all the tasks required to get the job done. Many departments will even let you speak to these groups while you are on-duty. You should also consider making a presentation to your elected officials from time to time. Sure, it’s a lot of work, but there are probably some members of you local that will actually enjoy doing it and the effort will be worth it for both you and your citizens. Who knows how many lives are saved through this type of awareness education. I bet it’s more than we save at the scene of an actual fire!
Many of us spend a great deal of our off-duty time participating in civic and charitable activities. It may be coaching a little league sport, being involved in scouting or PTA, a local civic organization, a church committee, or raising funds for MDA, Burn Centers of other charitable causes. Many of the people we interact with in these activities know we are firefighters but other than that, they know very little about our jobs. We are just the “offduty” firefighter they know. We’ve all been asked about our work in these settings but we usually just give a brief answer and try to re-direct the conversation to something else. It doesn’t take long for people to figure out not to ask anymore. The next time someone asks you a question about what you do, TELL THEM! Give details and technical explanations. Figure out a way to interact something job-related into the conversation each time you see them. These are the people that may need our services someday and they may be the people we will ask to support us if we face staffing reductions.
There are numerous books out there to help get you started such as “Fire safety Training” by Tom Kiurski. Tom also has an updated edition that is available on Amazon.com. It’s called “Creating a Fire-Safe Community: A Guide for Fire Safety Educations. Another book that you or your local should consider buying is “The Essentials of Fire Department Customer Service” by Alan V. Brunacini. This book goes far beyond the concepts that were mentioned in this article.
Finally, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well how valuable is a 208 page book of action fire photos? You may want to consider buying a copy of this book for every elected official in you city or township. The title of the book is “Thank God for These Guys: Chicago’s Firemen on the job” ($39.95, M.T. Publishing) It was put together by Alan Jacobs. Mr. Jacobs stated he felt badly after 9/11 because he really didn’t know all of the things that firefighters do, so he decided to put together a book of pictures to show the world what firefighters do. Very few people actually get to see us in action at a fire or any other type of emergency situations. I realize the photos in this book are about Chicago’s firefighters but I am sure anyone that looks at them will find it easy to visualize members of his/her own fire department in place of the firefighters in these pictures. Check it out.
Reade the review on www.Amazon.com and then order some copies.
Reprinted in part with permission
