In January, I wrote about collaboration vs. consolidation. I concluded: The best new year's resolution may be for you to be the progressive fire chief your people and your community deserve, who is constantly looking for ways to use the strength of your department to help your neighbors, and use their strengths to compliment your own. We all will face a time when either consolidation or collaboration will be discussed with or without our input. It is our job to prepare our department to be ready to assume the leadership role in these discussions, because we have demonstrated our ability to be proactive in improving our service and response to the citizens we serve.
A few months later, while in the Indianapolis area, I met some Indiana volunteer firefighters who asked whether I knew about the state's government-reform legislation and how it would affect fire departments throughout the state? When I answered “no,” they briefly described a report and a plan proposed by Gov. Mitch Daniels that called for the elimination of every township in the state and the transfer of all township government functions — including fire and EMS — to a central authority within each county. I thought, perhaps, these statements might be overstated, but the firefighters were sincere and suggested that I look into the concerns that they expressed.
So that we better understand the complexities of this issue, I'll start with a brief history review. Township government was first implemented in the Northwest Territory, which in 1787 brought into the United States a land area bounded by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the Great Lakes. This included all of the present day states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. In order to more easily survey this land, townships were established in a relatively uniform grid where possible to help facilitate subdividing and developing the land into separate plots for individual purchase. Residents of each township then elected three trustees who were charged with conducting the affairs of the local government, which initially meant the development and maintenance of the township, including providing some form of fire protection.
Other forms of local government in Indiana include counties, cities and towns. The primary difference between a city and a town is not determined by population, but in how the executive branch of the local government is run. Towns have an administrator similar to a city manager who is hired by the town council and provides the executive leadership to implement the council's policies. Cities generally are run by a strong mayoral form of government, with a council that handles legislative matters. Statistically, Indiana has 92 counties, 1,008 townships, 117 cities and 451 towns.
The report mentioned by the volunteers is commonly called the “Kernan-Shepherd” report, but it is more formally known as “Streamlining Local Government-We've Got to Stop Governing Like This.” The report was released in December 2007 by the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform in conjunction with the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at Indiana University. The co-chairs of the project were former Indiana Governor Joseph E. Kernan and Randall Shepherd, chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court. The commission also included four other former elected officials, one retired business person and 16 staff or advisory members, primarily from the Center for Urban Policy.
In 2009 and 2010, legislative initiatives were introduced in the Indiana House and Senate to adopt portions of the Kernan-Shepherd Report. In both instances, this legislation was not acted upon, as the legislature had adjourned for the year and was not scheduled to convene until after the November elections. (Indiana's legislature does not meet year-round.) However, Daniels is a strong proponent of the report, especially concerning the consolidation of public-safety services, primarily fire, EMS and 911 dispatch.
Essentially, such legislation seeks to eliminate township government and place the tax base and responsibilities of the township in the hands of an elected county executive. This official would replace a three-member board of county commissioners, and would be empowered to appoint key staff positions, such as the county assessor, treasurer, recorder, surveyor and coroner — all previously elected officials.
The legislation also would create a county-wide panel to oversee public-safety services, chaired and administered by the county executive, with the mayors of the cities within that county becoming voting members; non-voting representation would be given to any town or agency that provides public-safety services. Of interest is that towns, some having as many as 70,000 residents, are not considered to be voting members. Also, the legislation does not give the township residents most affected by the change in government any vote regarding the way they would receive public-safety services. Moreover, failure to adopt a consolidated public-safety plan within three years from the inception of the legislation would result in the Indiana State Police and the state's Department of Homeland Security adopting such a plan on behalf of the county.
In order to get an accurate sense of the legislation, I attempted to contact Indiana state officials. My initial call was to longtime fire chief John Buckman, who works in the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, Office of the State Fire Marshal. After a brief conversation, Buckman referred me to Sebastian Smelko, the governor's associate counsel and policy director. The odd thing was that in both conversations I heard some phrases that were surprisingly similar to “talking points.” One was that townships are arcane, inefficient, redundant and rampant with nepotism. Another was that townships are a costly, complex and duplicative governmental system that didn't adequately provide the services needed by its citizens. Regarding fire and EMS specifically, both made a reference to the costly “shiny red trucks” in fire stations within three to five miles of each other throughout Indiana. Unfortunately, while expensive, the cost of fire apparatus and equipment pales when compared to personnel costs that usually range from 80% to 95% of most fire-department budgets.
After listening to the explanations of the state officials, I asked several questions. One concerned whether the authors of the Kernan-Shepherd report or the state of Indiana calculated the economic impact or personnel cost savings provided by the state's volunteer firefighters? Since only the county executive and the mayors of cities within that county could vote on any public-safety plan, didn't that foretell that cities would attempt to provide all or most of the fire and EMS protection and use the additional revenue to subsidize their fire department's budget? Without equal voting privilege, what assurance did township residents have that the county's public-safety plan wouldn't increase their ISO fire-protection classification, and thus adversely affect their fire-insurance premium?
To emphasize my point, I frequently remind my mayor and city council that Wyoming's combination fire department provides an ISO Class 3 rating, while saving the city more than $2 million annually compared with a department using all career personnel. When I mentioned this to Smelko, he indicated that, to his knowledge, no one had figured the economic impact. He then asked why firefighters wouldn't continue to volunteer. I explained that most volunteer fire departments are community based, and that men and women volunteered to help their neighbors from a sense of community spirit and pride. I also offered that volunteers usually live reasonably close to their fire stations, which allows them to quickly drive to the fire or EMS apparatus and initiate a quick response.
I then asked whether the proponents of this legislation had thought about how the law would impact volunteers, especially when they had to drive past their old station that was closed by the county's public-safety plan to another station further down the road. There was no indication that any such impacts had been discussed.
An interesting point that came up during one conversation concerned the fact that Indiana's 1,008 townships currently have a surplus of $130 million dollars. This was mentioned as proof of the redundancy and inefficiency of that form of local government. Do the math and you will find that this figure represents roughly a $130,000 surplus per township. I asked whether it would make sense — in these tough economic times, when many states, counties and cities are facing shortfalls — to have a “carry-over” when possible. I also asked whether the surplus actually might indicate that townships were more efficient than those governments that were experiencing budget deficits. I did not receive answers to these questions.
In an attempt to gain some additional information about the potential effects of this legislation on Indiana's fire and EMS, I contacted Tim Deckard, president of the Indiana Volunteer Firefighters Association, which had been engaged in a two-year discussion with the governor's office regarding the proposed legislation. He opined that the future of this legislation greatly depends on the outcome of November's general election. He said that Daniels made it clear that he will press forward with the proposed reform of local government, especially if his party takes control of both the House and Senate.
The lesson learned from this proposed legislation is that we continuously must educate our local, state and federal officials regarding the benefits that our departments — and the fire service in general — provide to our citizens. We also must establish a positive rapport with the media so that the fire-service view on controversial issues can be weighed with equal or greater credibility by the public. It remains our job to prepare our departments to assume the leadership role in these discussions, because we have demonstrated our ability to be proactive in improving our service and our response to the citizens we serve.
Chief Robert R. Rielage, CFO, EFO, MIFireE, is the chief of Wyoming (Ohio) Fire-EMS, a 78-member combination fire department bordering Cincinnati. He previously served as the fire marshal of the state of Ohio. A graduate of the Kennedy School's Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard University, Rielage holds a master's degree in public administration from Norwich University and is the immediate past-president of the Institution of Fire Engineers-USA Branch. He is a member of the FIRE CHIEF Editorial Advisory Board.
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