By Jim Stevens
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
OCONOMOWOC, Wis. — With an economy mired in the Great Recession, governments on all levels are facing tough questions and decisions.
Among those difficult debates is public safety and what lies ahead.
Local officials were recently asked to peer into their crystal balls to see where fire departments will be in the next five to 10 years. There appear to be two answers:either consolidation/regionalization or more sharing of services. In either scenario, though, there appears to be a movement toward more fulltime employees to staff departments that are serving ever-growing areas.
Fire departments are an expensive investment. Firetrucks can run well over half a million dollars, ambulances over $100,000 and fire stations in the millions. The days of true volunteers, men and women who literally offered their services to be firefighters for free, have virtually disappeared. Today, the man or woman who responds to a medical emergency or fire is often not a neighbor who lives down the block, but who instead lives in a community miles away.
Slow move to full time David Beguhn, the public safety director for the City of Oconomowoc, oversees a fire department with three fulltime members and 47 paid-oncall members.
“We’re doing pretty well with paid-on-call. We have a large population base to draw from,” he said. Some of the city’s paid-on-call members also work with other departments such as Stone Bank or Lake Country, Beguhn added.
Some of the paid-on-call members have been there 15 to 20 years, he said.
A major difference from years past and today is the required training and mandates for fire and emergency medical service (EMS) personnel.
“It take a lot of time and energy,” Beguhn said.
The Pewaukee Fire Department covers both the City and Village of Pewaukee, and to keep up with the growth, the department now has 15 fulltime members with five command staff, and 45 paid-on-call members. When Pewaukee Fire Chief Kevin Bierce first joined the department in 1979 it was all part time, with a large local membership.
In the last 16 years, the department has slowly added more full-time employees who do not live in the area. Bierce said he has had members commute from as far away as Madison and Kenosha.
There is “a heavy demand use” in the Pewaukees, and “residents want and deserve a prompt response time and service,” Bierce said.
To continue to meet that expectation, more full-time members will be needed as the Pewaukees grow. “The development is here; there is plenty of stuff going on here in Pewaukee,” Bierce said.
Vernon Fire Chief Alex Felde agreed that with the onset of bedroom communities and the increased requirements, the local firefighter is becoming rarer, though he said there are still many on his department from the Vernon area.
Vernon has one full-time firefighter and one paramedic on duty during the day with about 50 paid-on-call members.
Consolidate or share? Beguhn said he sees a future that includes possible mergers and more sharing of services. For example, the city contracts with Lake Country Fire and Rescue for paramedic service, Beguhn noted.
LCFR has a paramedic license from the state, and by contracting, Oconomowoc can offer paramedic service to its residents.
The city department has not expressed any interest in merging with LCFR, but Beguhn said there will be continued cooperation with neighboring departments.
In Pewaukee, Bierce sees a similar approach, with more shared services. Consolidation may look like a possibility, but there are additional costs to a larger fire department as well as dealing with the political aspects, he said, including the problem of how to fairly fund a joint department.
“One community is not going to shoulder the whole load,” Bierce said.
Bierce has witnessed a consolidated fire department fall apart due to the question of funding.
In 1994, the village and then Town of Pewaukee agreed to merge their fire departments.
But in September 2003, the city’s Common Council voted to dissolve the joint fire services contract with the village over a proposed cost-sharing formula by the village.
Without its own fire department, the village agreed to contract with the city.
Politics and costs led the Big Bend-Vernon Fire Department, merged in 1963, to disband in 2010.
Town of Vernon officials voted to dissolve the joint operation late last year over what they said were unapproved legal fees involving the fire department and not being informed by Big Bend of discussions about possibly merging the department with another agency.
The breakup was a “unique situation” Felde said, due to a “tumultuous political environment at the time. The decision-makers made the decision as to what was best for their communities,” he added.
Despite the breakup, Felde sees regionalization and joint operations as the future. “It’s the fact of life,” he said.
In the future, he said, communities will have re-evaluate and look at cost savings, and regionalization will create better service.
When it comes to a person calling for help “people don’t care what it says on the side of the (truck’s) door,” Felde noted.
“We have to put ego aside and put service first for where people need it,” he said.
A regional department Lake Country Fire and Rescue has become the first regional fire department in the area, consisting of the City of Delafield and villages of Chenequa and Nashotah. The two villages merged their respective departments in 2000; Delafield joined last year.
Delafield Mayor Ed McAleer said the city did not save much in operational costs, but “it will save a lot in rolling stock.” While there have been some preliminary talks about adding the villages of Summit and Oconomowoc Lake, any merger needs to be done methodically, McAleer said. McAleer said “baby steps” are needed.
The addition of Delafield to the LCFR meant the addition of a paramedic service to residents in Nashotah and Chenequa.
Paramedics, quality of service and keeping costs in line are what residents are looking for, McAleer said.
One of the keys to avoiding the pitfalls that have sidelined other merged departments is the formula to divide costs, he said. In the case of LCR that includes population, equalized value and number of calls.
“You have to work those numbers over and over again,” McAleer said.
The other obstacle is the political side.
“Politics are more and more polarizing, protecting turf. We have to get over that. The need is going to drive that,” McAleer said.
The idea of a regional department has been bandied about for many years. In November 1995, the villages of Hartland and Chenequa, the Town of Delafield and the City of Delafield allocated money in their proposed 1996 budgets for a consolidation study.
A canvass of area communities was conducted to determine the interest of consolidating, and within five years four departments had merged.
On Jan. 1, 1999, Wales and Genesee merged their departments, and the following year Nashotah and Chenequa merged.
The Town of Delafield has recently experienced the political and fiscal reality of supporting its own fire department.
Town residents have three times — twice in a recent six-month span — voted down referendums for a new fire station.
Town Supervisor Larry Krause, who serves as the liaison between the Town Board and the Fire Department, sees the possibility of more shared services and consolidation.
“It all depends on what people are willing to pay,” said Krause.” It comes down to dollars and service to the public.”
“It’s all about the money right now,” Krause said. “How far are local politicians willing to stick their neck out in times of economic distress?” he asked.
“We have to put ego aside and put service first for where people need it.” Alex Felde Vernon Fire Chief
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