The Naperville Sun had a recent article about the recent discussions on regional consolidation of fire protection services and the possible impact on the City of Naperville.
The DuPage County task force studying the possibility of consolidating firefighting services throughout the county has raised concerns about local fire stations closing to make service more efficient. However, at this point, it’s not likely to happen in Naperville.
[Naperville Fire Chief Mark] Puknaitis is part of the group that includes the DuPage Fire Chiefs Association, two members of the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference and DuPage County Board member Gary Grasso (R-Burr Ridge) looking at how fire departments can consolidate some services to save money.
Last week, Grasso unveiled a working plan for a quadrant system, which divided the county into four sections. Naperville would be in the southwest quadrant along with s large section of Lisle.
The group’s effort is part of a broader conversation DuPage officials have been having for the last several years about strategies for improving fire protection services and making them more cost efficient. Puknaitis said that when it comes to costs, Naperville’s taxpayers are faring pretty well. He gave his own home as an example, saying that he only paid $100 per year on his property tax bill for fire protection.
Puknaitis said that Naperville property taxpayers benefitted from the fact that fire service is funded partially by revenue sources other than property taxes, such as the city’s sales tax. Many other fire protection districts are actually separate taxing bodies, limited in revenue to what they can levy in property taxes. He cited the nearby Lisle-Woodridge and Plainfield fire prevention districts, both separate taxing bodies.
Although no one on the task force has mentioned the possibility of actual consolidation of taxing bodies, the quadrant proposal is in its early stages and consolidating services of some sort might require agreements between different districts.
Puknaitis does see merit in the quadrant system and some sort of shared service between districts, including purchasing equipment, a significant capital expense for fire prevention districts. He said that new arrangements might be made between them to make response times quicker by using a neighboring fire protection district if it is actually closer to the location of a call.
Naperville accounts for about 20 percent of DuPage County’s calls for fire response and EMS, and it’s a function that has seen changes in recent history. Where once a typical local fire department’s responsibilities were predominantly calls for structure fires, modern fire departments are generally a diversified service.
Naperville averages 25 to 30 calls per year for significant structure fires but 11,000 to 12,000 for other calls, many for emergency medical services, activated fire alarms or smaller fire incidents.
Puknaitis feels that the entire county will be able to make fire protection better and more cost-efficient without closing any stations in Naperville.
thanks Dan
#1 by 0.03 on May 28, 2014 - 9:57 PM
Our job is to provide a service and doing a redundant response like ALS/BLS is not cost efficient. People need to realize that our service costs money and as our job keeps expanding we are asked to do more. Chiefs need to actually take a proactive stance and defend their department instead of cowering and dealing with do more with less. The private companies are not gonna have ambulances chase on the possibility of a transport. Plus most privates require payment at time of service.
#2 by Operator 57 on May 28, 2014 - 8:44 PM
This may be interpruted wrong but here I go
A huge part of expenses are ambulance runs, lombard once ran a system where a BLS and MICU went if it wasnt a MICU run the BLS transported. Why can’t private ambulance services be contracted to chase calls , and if it is one of the those”I don’t have a car so I’ll call the fire department” the private BLS crew takes the run the FD’s MICU returns to quarters.
#3 by 0.03 on May 28, 2014 - 3:49 PM
The lake county quad system is just apparatus numbering that’s all.
#4 by Jerry on May 28, 2014 - 3:10 PM
Why don’t they just do something like Lake County? They have a Quad system in place.
#5 by Crabby Milton on May 28, 2014 - 11:50 AM
I find it interesting that while every metropolitan area and bordering communities are different, that people don’t seem to want to cut city services outside of public safety. Not saying consolidation is bad or wasteful spending is good in public safety but cities spend money on things that they have no business of being mixed up in the first place. Get out of such things and perhaps such drastic cost cutting measures in public safety may be a non issue.
#6 by Evan Davis on May 28, 2014 - 9:55 AM
I grew up in Elmhurst, but I’m a Firefighter/EMT near Lynchburg, VA right now. There are a lot of counties here in VA, especially in the Washington D.C. area where they have all volunteer fire and rescue agencies and are supplemented by a county career staff. Fairfax County Fire and Rescue, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue, and Prince William County Fire and Rescue are a few counties for example that provide career firefighter, paramedics, and EMTs for the whole county and provide back up to all the indivdual volunteer agencies if they need the extra help. D.C. area fire and rescue agencies have a VERY strong volunteer base. That helps in keeping costs down as well. I’m not a big fan of this system. I’d like to see career, part-time, POC, and volunteer firefighters/paramedics all be under one dept. I know a lot of of depts and fire protection districts in the Chicago area are like that.
#7 by DIV 12 on May 28, 2014 - 9:50 AM
Naperville is NOT responsible for 20% of responses in DuPage County. Division 12 (all located in DuPage) departments alone ran 64000 calls overall last year. There are other departments in DuPage or partially in DuPage that run a significant number of calls as well.
#8 by Matt on May 28, 2014 - 9:40 AM
The biggest impediment to consolidation will be the bosses and politicians. Don’t need all those chiefs, so someone will lose a job, and the politicians won’t want to give up power. Even though it makes sense, won’t happen.
#9 by ffpm240 on May 28, 2014 - 8:33 AM
Bill you obviously don’t know that Mark is willing to shut down up to 3 ambulances a day instead of paying the overtime to keep them up, despite having several hundred thousand dollars for overtime. He has also permanently closed 1 engine company. He has become very good at giving money back to the city council. One should never assume.
#10 by Bill on May 27, 2014 - 10:03 PM
Of course we wouldn’t shut down fire stations in Naperville. Everywhere else is fine.