The Daily Herald has a followup article today addressing the Village of Barrington looking to save money from their fire department operations. The article describes a desire to implement ‘closest response agreements’ with neighboring fire departments and districts.
Barrington village officials will continue their quest for cost savings in fire service next year by approaching neighboring fire departments and districts about tweaking their mutual-aid agreements.
Specifically, Barrington would like to negotiate what are called “closest-response agreements” that ask departments to take primary responsibility for medical and fire calls closest to their stations, even if the calls come from a different jurisdiction.
It is a change from the more common forms of mutual aid, in which departments simply back up and assist other jurisdictions when needed.
Though Barrington hasn’t started reaching out to the neighboring departments, a handful contacted by the Daily Herald Wednesday expressed different levels of openness to the idea.
Several departments gave comments to the reporter about their thoughts on the new proposal from Barrington.
#1 by mike on December 16, 2011 - 12:16 PM
Mutual Aid is supposed to be for when you have an incident where your available resources are over taxed. Barrington is trying to use this so they don’t have to hire more employees. They had a study done and the study came out and said they needed another firehouse and more guys. It is my understanding that the fire district wants to hire more but the city is telling them no, so what needs to be done is they become a full fire district and let the city contract to them. This mutual plan is going to fail because look at who their neighbors are. All but 1 or 2 departments are single station departments so they’re going to be stripped to help barrington and the other 2 are busier then barrington is so it’ll be if they’re available.
#2 by Richard on December 16, 2011 - 12:15 PM
The Village Administrator doesn’t have complete knowledge of what MABAS is and it’s purpose. He is only making himself and the Department look bad. I would really like to hear what the Chief of BFD thinks about these articles he keeps circulating. I’d also like to hear what the Fire District’s stance is on this topic. Also, I can only assume it’s his way to shine a negative light towards the FD and their capabilities. I’ve been a resident of the area for years and feel that Barrington FD is a very professional and agressive FD. Everyone relies on MABAS for help – even the City of Chicago. The Village Administrator should realize that his FD is capable and that surrounding Department’s will never and should never agree to this…
#3 by Mike R on December 16, 2011 - 11:36 AM
When an ambulance responds and transports, they can bill the patient. When engines, trucks, squads respond, there’s no one to foot the bill. Mutual aid is one thing, asking another department or district to just handle your calls won’t last long without money changing hands.
#4 by RA on December 16, 2011 - 12:08 AM
Also, Palatine Rural currently runs auto-aid with Barrington (to certain areas) right now on EMS calls and the like. Kind of like a dual district sort-of set up.
It will be interesting to see what the admins for Barrington can work out.
#5 by Scott Peterson on December 15, 2011 - 10:41 PM
Palatine Rural has not lost any areas.. They have increased use of Auto-Aid with Palatine & Hoffman Estates. In fact, Palatine Rural is one of the towns assisting Barrington many times a month with an engine to their district!
#6 by Keith on December 15, 2011 - 6:59 PM
WTF! Let me get this straight, the genious city fathers that manage Barrington want to rely on neighboring departments/district to pick up their calls while they continue to charge homeowners for THEIR fire protection? Are you kidding me? News flash, everyone’s call volumes are increasing already! So the village manager’s brilliant solution is to overburden neighboring resources to “cover” Barrington? Then with that being said maybe Barrington should give up their district coverage since they obviously cannot afford it and focus strictly on their city limits. They obviously operate with champaigne taste on a beer budget by looking at their headquarters. By the way doesn’t the fire protection district board have any say in this issue since they contract the city for services?
#7 by Brian on December 15, 2011 - 4:08 PM
Don’t be shocked to see this type of arrangement begin to happen in other areas in the Chicagoland area.
#8 by Dan on December 15, 2011 - 3:50 PM
It would be interesting to see Palatine Rural pick up some of the coverage if this goes through. I know they had been losing area over the past decade or so.