The National Volunteer Fire Council Foundation’s Cost-Savings Calculator is a powerful, new analytical tool that helps volunteer and combination fire departments show the true value of their services to the community. Armed with these figures, not only can fire companies educate elected officials on the value their departments bring to the community, they can also show how many resources would need to be borne by local and regional governments in their absence.

Often, it turns out that the value is enormous. Just ask Patrick Hlavaty, a 25-year member and current president of the El Campo Volunteer Fire Department in Texas. It fell to him to try to convince El Campo town officials to fund the operations at a new fire training facility.

The 56-member volunteer company decided to build its new training facility on previously donated land immediately adjacent to the town of 14,000 residents, which is located near the Gulf of Mexico approximately 75 miles southwest of Houston.

Hlavaty explains that the total funding for the fire training facility topped $1.3 million. Just over $400,000 was raised through applying for grants from regional not-for-profit foundations, as well as from one Federal grant covering the equipment to be used in the training facility. Additional dollars were raised through direct fundraising efforts conducted by the fire department. El Campo’s four banks came through with the balance in the form of loans, which are being repaid in part from rural fire tax revenues, as well as revenues generated from registration fees collected from firefighters who go through the training program.

What remained for Hlavaty was finding the funds to operate and maintain the facility, including sewer and water service – an amount estimated to be about $20,000 to $30,000 annually. That’s when the city of El Campo was approached with a request to help.

Turning Doubters into Deliverers

At first, the El Campo VFD faced resistance, in part because the proposed facility was situated just outside the city limits. “We tried to explain that the training facility would benefit not only those of us in the immediate vicinity, but also the seven other fire departments in Wharton County as well as departments in neighboring counties,” Hlavaty noted. “Instead of sending our firefighters away for training and incurring all of the travel and lodging expenses, our members could now train locally. Unfortunately, that argument alone wasn’t persuasive enough,” he added.

To help strengthen his case, Hlavaty decided to download the National Volunteer Fire Council Foundation’s free Cost Savings Calculator which is on the NVFC Web site ( www.nvfc.org) and fill out the information that would show how much in funding the El Campo VFD saves the city because of its volunteer firefighters and EMS providers. In the case of El Campo, the Cost Savings Calculator revealed that the department saves the town approximately $1.5 million per year in operating costs – precious funds that simply don’t exist.

Simple Arithmetic

According to Hlavaty, it was very easy to fill out the NVFC’s calculator form. “If you know how to operate a computer, you can do it easily. I filled mine out within minutes,” he observed. “Then, I went to our city manager and showed him the numbers. I even offered to go in front of the city council to present the information. As it turned out, that wasn’t necessary. The numbers told the story completely, and all of the objections just seemed to melt away,” he reported.

“Not only were we were able to obtain our funding for the new training operations, we actually got more than we asked for. They also decided to cover the cost to extend city water and sewer lines to our facility, and are now servicing our whole training field with city water. Not having to use wells and pumps is a huge additional savings for us,” Hlavaty added.

Hlavaty is convinced that most town or county officials and community leaders do not truly understand the economic value of volunteer and combination fire departments. “If you present to them what the economic impact would be if the volunteer service was not there, it will open their eyes – and their wallets as well,” he maintains.

What’s next on the horizon for El Campo’s volunteer fire company? “In the upcoming budget cycle, we’re planning to ask the city to buy a new Class A pumper,” Hlavaty reported. Asked how confident he is that the funding will be provided, he answered modestly, “We’ll just see how it comes out.” But you can sense that he feels his chances are very good ... armed with the compelling numbers he’s compiled using the NVFC Foundation’s Cost Savings Calculator.

NVFC Calculator

Developed by the National Volunteer Fire Council Foundation in conjunction with the Public Safety & Environmental Protection Institute at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA, the Cost Savings Calculator is available to all fire departments for free download at the NVFC’s Web site. Extremely user-friendly and easy to use, the Cost Savings Calculator helps compute the local cost savings of a volunteer fire department.

Using this methodology and applying it to all volunteer and combination fire departments across the country, the Public Safety & Environmental Protection Institute was able to determine that it would cost U.S. taxpayers more than $37 billion annually if all volunteer firefighters were to be replaced with career staffers.

The NVFC’s Cost Savings Calculator is in two sections. Section 1 consists of information that is filled in by the fire department, and includes the following items:

• Area protected (square miles)
• Population protected
• Number of residences
• Current operating expenses
• Active volunteers (fire ground operations, fundraising, administrative)
• Ownership of assets (number of stations)
• Ownership of assets (engines, aerial trucks, tankers, rescue trucks, utility vehicles, brush trucks, ambulances)
• Starting salary + benefits (based on career personnel in the vicinity, for chief, deputy chief, assistant chief, captain, lieutenants, drivers, medics, fire/rescue personnel, administrative)

As a further aid to fire departments, the NVFC has also developed a PowerPoint® presentation template which can be customized easily by inserting individual department data. The result is a compelling, polished presentation showing the value the department contributes to the community. The presentation template is also available for free download at the NVFC's Web site.

Heather Schafer is Executive Director of the National Volunteer Fire Council in Washington, DC. For more information on the NVFC’s programs and activities, call 1-888-ASK-NVFC or 202-887-5700.