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.
