What Happened?
The Citizen’s Efficiency Commission recently made recommendations to Illinois’ Sangamon County on how to run more efficiently through various consolidation efforts including the merging of fire protection districts and departments into four districts. Through the consolidation of fire protection departments, the participating cities could enjoy significant savings, improved outcomes and standardized services for more efficient management.
The Goal
The Citizens Efficiency Commission was created by Sangamon County voters in 2010 and is designed to analyze municipality functions to determine what changes should be made to improve overall performance while reducing unnecessary costs. The commission revealed its recommendations for 2014. A consultant could be hired to analyze potential consolidation strategies to reduce local costs without sacrificing quality of protection for residents.
The strategy calls for the Springfield Fire Department that provides emergency services to nine fire protection districts in surrounding communities to transition the program into a more consolidated structure. Through an intergovernmental agreement, Springfield and its neighboring cities could consolidate all fire protection services into a single district, and then create similar establishments in outlying rural fire protection districts.
By merging assets, personnel and infrastructure, the cities could enjoy lower administrative costs and legal fees. Response times could be improved across the districts through an on-call arrangement and agreement with volunteers that allocates resources where residential need is highest. The overlap across the nine districts creates duplication in services and infrastructure use, which could be eliminated with the consolidation measure.
To determine what course of action would best fit the Springfield situation, the commission examined the efficiency and effectiveness of the structure of nine independent fire protection districts, and what changes could be legally made under state laws to improve efficiency. The commission also evaluated opportunities to utilize revenues for improvement of emergency services while saving significant taxpayer dollars.
Bloomington Leads the Way
While the Citizens Efficiency Commission has selected Bloomington and other nearby cities to participate in a fire protection district consolidation project, the city’s officials are also interested in other merger activities of its own departments. The city manager has developed a strategy to reduce the overall size of the local government while still supplying the same services and resources to residents at a reduced cost.
The “Right Size City Government” proposal directly addresses the city’s financial troubles as deficits remain persistent while demands continue to rise. With many municipal employees approaching retirement, the city manager hopes to reduce the number of department directors by combining sectors and reducing administrative expenditures.
The city might create an overarching administrative services department that would handle the direction of the city’s clerk office, human resources, information systems and finance simultaneously. Other departments such as code enforcement and planning could be combined to form a community development department, while public works sectors could be downsized while offering the same services.
Consolidation on Fire
Gov1 has followed the ever-popular fire department consolidation strategies nationwide that often include other departments such as police.