A great deal of time and energy are being devoted to a discussion of the concepts of shared services and consolidation. There are those in the political world parading through the streets of their communities beating the big bass drum of shared services, but are they putting these ideas forward for the proper reasons? In each and every case, they sing the praises of the concept that bigger is better. Is this always true? I have to wonder. I have spent a great deal of time reviewing the concept of shared services. We are exploring this in my community. There may well be economies of scale that are being overlooked.
When I speak of shared services, I am not discussing consolidation, although that can become another example of sharing services. People who push the concepts of shared services and consolidation on the basis of saving money are often traveling on the wrong road. Shared services should be based on what is best for the consumer of our services.
The public in general and politicians in particular are concerned only with saving dollars. They pay little heed to the impact of their demands for sharing services and consolidating our service on the quality of the service being provided to the citizens of our communities — our customers, so to speak. They would have us cutting our individual agencies on the basis of filling in one organization's service delivery gaps with the resources of another community. I ran into this mindset during recent discussions with a mayor in New Jersey. Let me share a few thoughts on our cost of doing business here in the Garden State. Maybe they can help you work through the problems in your area.
That mayor thought that the shortfalls in the community could be handled by simply using the fire departments in other communities. This person was using the flawed "one-way-street thinking" that I have been fighting for a long time. Let me cite a commentary that I called "Beware the Mutual Aid Mooch": "I am a strong advocate of mutual aid, automatic aid and regional dispatching. I see it as an effective way to create a regional firefighting force capable of coming together in a rapid manner for the common good. I take a bit of flak now and then for championing this approach to fire protection delivery and deployment, but that's OK." I stand by my thoughts on the need to develop cross-border arrangements that let fire departments from different districts respond as a common force. That makes real sense. None of us can handle the truly large-scale emergency by ourselves.
"What really galls me is that group of people that I am now going to publicly grant a nickname to for the first time. These folks are members of a group of fire service cheapskates that I intend to start calling Mutual Aid Mooches. They want you to pay for their fire protection. Think about the concept of what a moocher is. This is the person who sits between two friends in a restaurant and picks a bit of meat off of one plate, and then turns to the other buddy and spears a couple of lima beans. But don't reach for his plate or he will spear your hand."
Around the time I was crafting my mooch article, an e-mail message came into to my website that took me to task for confusing true mutual aid with regional dispatch. The individual who wrote the message went on at length about how mutual aid was only for real fires and real need. He said he was tired of having people in other departments mooch off of him. I thanked him for his reply, and consigned his comments to the appropriate mailbox I maintain for reactionary people.
I was going to let this matter lie because I didn't agree with much of what this person had to say. But the message did cause me to think. Let me state my views once again for all to hear. I am a firm believer in automatic aid and regional dispatching for one very simple reason. Fire will not wait for us to respond, decide we need mutual aid, call for help and then fight a holding action until help comes. Fire responds to the tenets of the standard time and temperature curve. If there is more fire than water being put on the fire, you will probably lose the battle. The help will usually arrive too late to be of any real assistance.
That is my position. Having said all of that, I must add that I also detest fire service cheapskates. I once took a fire department in New Jersey to task for attempting to get by with the continual help of a mutual aid aerial ladder company. Theirs broke down, and they claimed that they did not have enough money to buy a new one. This was one of those times when my love of automatic mutual aid and regional dispatch ran head on into my disdain for moochy people. And this department was a classic example of what I came to call mutual aid mooches.
I can think of another case involving an all-volunteer fire department. They are active participants in a regional mutual aid and dispatch consortium. They are most comfortable with using their four career people who respond with a pumper on automatic aid to handle their initial attack firefighting requirements until they can muster an appropriately staffed attack team. However, when they are asked if they intend to hire career staff for their firefighting operation, they state that this is not necessary, since they have the career people coming in from the next district. Here is where I start to get upset. Here is another example of a group achieving the lowly status of being mutual aid mooches.
I would have to lump that mayor I made reference to earlier in this piece as a member of the mooch brigade. "The same holds true for those fire chiefs who want mutual aid to run into their town every time they call, but who refuse to send out equipment to stand by in another community. They want it all without having to put up a fair share in return."
Where did the concept of shared service arise and why was it embraced? My research shows that the original thoughts on shared services came from the business world. Studies have shown that it made more sense for large-scale businesses to centralize certain of their functions. Kroll (2007) speaks to the saving of one firm when she states that Verizon Services saves money for its parent company Verizon Communications. It provides "a shared services center (which provides) financial, real estate, and supply-chain services to Verizon's business groups" (Business Finance, November, page 19). The author goes on to point out that many of the savings came from reductions in staff and the elimination of certain types of project outsourcing. Other savings came thanks to the economies of scale from larger-volume purchasing agreements. Kroll goes on to issue a warning about the creation of shared services operations. "No matter what functions are included, establishing a shared services organization (operation) requires more than simply bringing numerous support groups under one roof" (page 19).
I have concerns about decisions driven solely by the costs involved in doing a task. As one who has labored under the governmentally imposed millstone of the low bid, I fear such cost-oriented decisions. I may even have labeled those laws "The curse of the low bid." There is a reason why someone is willing to do something for a lower cost and that reason is not normally a positive factor for the end user of the product or service. However, there is a right way to approach the concept of shared services that is all-too-frequently overlooked by the political hacks, the people who drive these cost-cutting measures forward. We need to understand that there is a right way and a wrong way to approach an idea like this.
Next: Coming Together
DR. HARRY R. CARTER, Ph.D., CFO, MIFireE, is a Firehouse® contributing editor. A municipal fire protection consultant based in Adelphia, NJ, he is the former president of the International Society of Fire Service Instructors. Dr. Carter is a past chief and active life member of the Adelphia Fire Company. Currently chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners for Howell Township District 2, he retired from the Newark, NJ, Fire Department in 1999 as a battalion commander. He also served as chief of training and commander of the Hazardous Materials Response Team. Dr. Carter is vice president of the American Branch of the Institution of Fire Engineers (MIFireE). He recently published Living My Dream: Dr. Harry Carter's 2006 FIRE Act Road Trip, which was also the subject of a Firehouse.com blog. He may be contacted at [email protected].
