By Donovan Slack and John C. Drake
The Boston Globe
BOSTON — A report by city officials in Columbus, Ohio, that ranked Boston first in the nation in the per capita cost of fire and emergency services was wrong because it was based on faulty numbers, Columbus officials said yesterday.
In fact, Boston had the second most expensive fire and EMS spending in the country, behind San Francisco, they said. Boston spent $285 per resident on its fire department during the last fiscal year, according to the revised report. San Francisco paid the highest at $315 per resident, it said.
Columbus officials apologized for the erroneous data, which has been circulating among city officials across the country and generated extensive news coverage in Boston after a Globe story based on the study appeared yesterday morning.
“At least as far as the spending per person, there was a significant mathematical error,” said Joel S. Taylor, director of the Department of Finance and Management in Columbus. “I feel bad about it. I’m really sorry.”
Columbus found that it had miscalculated the city of Boston’s cost for emergency medical services. Taylor said that someone added a 1 to the $11 million annual cost of emergency medical services in Boston, mistakenly adding $100 million to the total.
Columbus officials yesterday stuck by their original findings that showed Boston with the highest number of fire and EMS personnel per square mile and per resident.
Nevertheless, Edward Kelly, president of the Boston firefighters’ union, which has defended the size of the department as necessary because of the city’s older buildings and its narrow, winding streets, said the miscalculation invalidated the entire report.
“The report is completely skewed,” said Kelly. “I think this report should just be discounted.”
Kelly said a more accurate calculation would also account for the city’s increase in population during the day.
Boston officials who had used the earlier report in arbitration negotiations with the union said the city did not check the numbers.
“None of us caught this,” said John Dunlap, head of labor relations for the city. Still, Dunlap said the same conclusion can be drawn from the revised report: “What it shows is that by any measure, the Boston Fire Department is one of the most well-financed in the entire country.”
An official at a municipal watchdog agency who had said that the original report showed Boston has an exceedingly expensive fire department stood by his comments yesterday.
“The Boston Fire Department has a top-heavy management structure, an outdated fire alarm division that costs taxpayers millions, and a maintenance division that is both costly and ineffective,” said Jeffrey W. Conley, executive director of the Boston Finance Commission, an independent agency charged with rooting out mismanagement in city government. “This isn’t a golf tournament; you don’t want to be in the top two.”
City Council members said the report, even with the correction, revealed a need to probe spending in the Fire Department more closely.
Also, challengers to Mayor Thomas M. Menino said any responsibility for bloated spending rests with the mayor.
Councilor Sam Yoon, who is running for mayor, said the issue of Fire Department spending will feature prominently in a hearing he is holding tonight at Codman Square Health Center on the city’s budget.
Yoon said the Columbus report along with an earlier Boston Finance Commission report showed the city is overpaying for fire services because of the Menino administration’s failure to enact reforms suggested in a series of department reviews during the mayor’s 15-year tenure.
“The responsibility for these reforms lies with the mayor,” he said. “The mayor in the end decides, with the stroke of his pen, whether or not to sign a contract that includes reform or omits them.”
Kevin McCrea, a South End business owner who is also running for mayor, faulted the mayor and the City Council for not monitoring public safety spending more closely.
“The blame goes to every elected official at City Hall that refused to do an actual examination of the budget,” McCrea said. “The mayor proposes the budget and the City Council is supposed to look at the budget. And clearly no one’s really looking at the numbers.”
Councilor Michael F. Flaherty, who also is running for mayor, said a series of reports have revealed “expensive mismanagement’” by the Menino administration.
“Taxpayers don’t need another unread commission report with unfilled recommendations,” he said. “We need a mayor that will lead.”
But Menino administration officials countered that cost overruns in the department resulted from abuse of contract provisions related to sick leave and light-duty.
Councilor Mark Ciommo, chairman of the council’s committee on ways and means, said the Columbus report and other independent reports on the fire department show a need to implement previously recommended reforms on a series of issues, including sick leave and healthcare costs.
“Public safety has to be the number one priority, but within that priority we have to be efficient and run the department effectively,” he said.
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