What Happened?
Four public works employees in New Jersey will double as firefighters under a shared services agreement reached between the township committee and local fire district. Many municipalities are recognizing areas of overlap as opportunities for cost savings and improvements in efficiency.
Sharing Employees
Harrison Township, New Jersey, will have four new employees working on its public works team. These four individuals were volunteer firefighters in the local fire district who have been hired full-time to work in conjunction with the public works team.
Under the shared services agreement between the township and the fire district, the four workers will be paid $15/hr on the fire district’s payroll, while conducting public works department tasks for most of the workday. These four workers, however, will be on call to respond to fire emergencies, as well as help maintain the fire department’s equipment, the South Jersey Times reported.
Harrison Township has noticed a decline in the number of volunteer firefighters available. In response, the township decided to bring four of the volunteers on as full-time staff helping out both the fire department and the public works team. Providing support for both departments will enable existing public works staff to take on more specialized duties as well ensure faster response times to emergencies in the community, the South Jersey Times reported.
Streamlining Services
Other cities are embracing existing overlaps in departmental operations to reduce overall costs. The Newark City Council recently combined two of its departments to create the Division of Street Maintenance and Traffic Control in light of union grievances. By consolidating the street and traffic divisions, the city aims to save $63,000 annually and streamline services, Newark Advocate reported.
Under the consolidation strategy, redundant positions originally in both departments will be eliminated, while the combining of teams is expected to improve the quality of services delivered. When major events occur – such as street paving or snow plowing - and more manpower is needed a single, larger department can better handle public demands, Newark Advocate reported.
Dropping Borders
The city of Madison, Wisconsin, and Dane County are considering implementing cross-jurisdictional dispatching, or border dropping, protocols to enable faster, more efficient responses to emergency calls. Border dropping involves dispatchers contacting the closest emergency units to the source of the call, rather than abiding by jurisdictional lines. This means emergencies occurring along city borders would be taken care of by the closest team of responders, Madison.com reported.
Madison’s fire department is conducting a study to determine the impact of a border dropping policy, as well as identifying the logistics that would need to be worked out – such as measuring response times for each unit - before the initiative could be launched. Previous border dropping plans in other cities suggest emergency teams should work together to create geographical boundaries based on distance and response times to determine who responds to each call, Madison.com reported.
New Models for Emergency Response
Gov1 has reported on a vast array of innovative strategies cities are experimenting with to make emergency teams more efficient and cost-effective.