Copyright 2005 Newsday, Inc.
Brian Hickey is the sort of leader you’d follow into hell. His firefighters did, time and again. And on Sept. 11, 2001, when the call came into Woodside’s Rescue 4, they followed their captain into the World Trade Center - and to their deaths.
Hickey, whose spirit infused the powerful Newsday series on Long Island’s volunteer departments, was a firefighter’s firefighter. After his paid shifts for the FDNY, he’d give his own time to the Bethpage Fire Department. As a volunteer, Hickey pushed for better training and more cooperation among the dozens of LI departments. His goal: save lives with faster response times and save money with smarter spending. It’s a goal that should be shared by firefighters and taxpayers alike.
Like Newsday’s eight-part “Fire Alarm” series, Hickey’s crusade earned the ire of many volunteers. They denounced him for declaring that extra spending on fancy trucks and junkets didn’t buy better service and didn’t boost the dwindling corps of willing volunteers. But he was right.
It’s time not just to listen to Hickey, who was willing both to answer the alarm and to ring it. It’s time to act on consolidating small, inefficient departments, as this 9/11 hero - and experts - recommended. It’s time to consider selling off excess equipment. It’s time to consider buttressing dedicated volunteers with paid firefighters.
The problems
- Long Island’s volunteer fire service faces its own dire emergencies, even as its members deserve respect and admiration. Consider these realities:
- In too many departments, costs are spiraling at a rate three times faster than other government services.
- Response times are lagging.
- Volunteers are increasingly scarce.
- And oversight, whether it’s a lack of audits by Albany watchdogs or low voter turnout for departmental elections, is almost nonexistent.
This has to change. And while the fragmentation - Long Island has 179 volunteer agencies - means that no one official or elected body has the power to effect sweeping reforms, the region’s top elected officials must not be afraid to use their bully pulpits.
“Volunteer fire protection here costs more than $319 million a year, and fire agencies own more than $1 billion worth of buildings and equipment, but most Long Islanders can’t count on local volunteers to deliver help fast enough to revive someone whose heart has stopped beating or to put out a fire in the room where it started,” reporter Elizabeth Moore wrote. “Tougher technical and safety mandates have driven up the cost of fire protection everywhere, but Long Island’s ... agencies have gained national renown for the ways they spend the public’s money.”
Wide disparities
Consider just these startling disparities: Long Island boasts more fire apparatus than New York City and the city and county of Los Angeles combined. Meanwhile, these big departments protect almost three times as much land and six times as many people and respond to 12 times as many calls for help.
In many communities, the property tax bill for the volunteer fire and ambulance service - which many homeowners believe is largely free - is higher than the levy for professional police.
Is there any good reason why Long Island has ' mega-costly heavy rescue trucks while the city has six? Is there any good reason to build bigger and bigger fire houses, often with party rooms and gyms? Is there any good reason to spend funds on luxurious out-of-town conventions? Even many firefighters say no.
But it must be possible to criticize the volunteer departments and not be considered “anti-fireman.” And there ways of improving services without spending a lot of extra money that over-taxed Long Islanders can’t afford. Here’s how:
1. Consolidate. The quickest fix would be for departments to band together and hire professional crews to supplement the shrinking number of volunteers. The costs would be shared by many communities and the crews would serve in centralized locations during shifts when volunteers are especially hard to come by.
Near the Queens-Nassau border, for instance, five agencies are clustered in less than a square mile. They have 10 pumpers and a ladder truck among them and answered 422 alarms in the last year data was collected- none of which required the use of a fire engine.
2. Blend. More fully-blended departments may be the answer, with professionals working alongside volunteers. The few on Long Island are among its most efficient and effective. This would cost less than fully professionalizing the service and would maintain a noble tradition of volunteerism.
3. Unleash watchdogs. Obviously, Albany must do its part; the comptroller must dramatically increase the number of audits. (No regularly scheduled ones have been done in years.) Fiscally, the departments should be treated like any agency that receives taxpayer dollars. But each department is a government unto itself, with elected officials, most of whose decisions can’t be challenged by higher authorities. There is no state fire commissioner who can override local actions.
Brian Hickey was not alone. Almost every department has members who love firefighting and volunteering but also know that their companies can do a better job for less money. And they know how, while respecting traditions, to move toward a more realistic future.
4. Call a fire summit. That’s why Sen. Michael Balboni’s call for a summit - which should include the Nassau and Suffolk county executives, key officials and firefighters - is a good idea. Use it to give volunteers the chance to recommend how to save money, improve response time and recruit new volunteers.
5. Wake up taxpayers. But in the end, taxpayers in individual communities need to come to take charge. They must attend fire department meetings and, using Newsday’s series as a guide, ask questions about purchases and policies. And then they must show their concerns - and support - not just by donating money and waving to the firefighters during Main Street parades, but by coming out to vote in elections for commissioner and to approve issuing bonds.
Change should be brought about carefully. We hope it doesn’t take a tax revolt, which could hurt as much as help, to turn things around. This is one parade the volunteers should be proud to lead.