By Carl J. Haddon
How do rural fire districts operate effectively and efficiently, or even at all, if their boards of publicly elected fire commissioners knows absolutely nothing about the fire service, volunteer and/or paid firefighters, or what it takes to operate a rural fire department? Sound familiar? Welcome to my world.
Before I get myself into trouble (like that’s something new), allow me to share with you that I have actively been in the fire service since 1982. I was asked to join a rural volunteer fire department 15 years ago when I left southern California and moved to the Rocky Mountains of Idaho. I started at the rank of Captain, and reluctantly earned the rank of Deputy Chief. During my tenure here in God’s country, I also served as an elected Fire Commissioner for 10 years before I retired. I share this with you because I’ve lived these challenges on both sides of the fence. Neither of those sides was an easy task.
Many of us know that it is no walk in the woods to be a chief officer in a rural volunteer fire department. Volunteer recruitment and retention is a never-ending challenge. Getting volunteers to train on a regular and adequate basis is often times impossible. Operating budgets, of course, are most always a challenge, as there always seem to be more “needs” than there are budget dollars to fill them. Triaging fire department equipment, apparatus, maintenance, and training needs is a full time job all on its own that we often ask volunteer fire officers and, in many cases (like ours), volunteer fire commissioners to dedicate precious free to time figuring out how to manage. Unlike many others, I had a leg up on being a publicly elected fire commissioner. I had more than 20 years under my belt as a career firefighter and fire officer. I also had more than 20 years under my belt as a small business owner. It was painfully obvious to me from the beginning of my time as a commissioner that there was one huge component lacking from the equation that allowed fire department personnel and fire district commissioners to be able to work in harmony: education. Education is the key.
In most cases, when a firefighter or fire officer “needs” something on or for the job, he or she fills out a requisition form of some sort. From that point, all that the firefighter or officer knows is that the request for goods or services goes up to “the bosses,” who either say yes or no. End of discussion.
On the other side of the fence, the bosses/board of fire commissioners get the list of needs and wants from the fire chief. The commissioners are then supposed to approve or deny departmental requests, as they are the entity tasked with using public tax, millage, and/or levying dollars to fund these requests, while also paying monthly departmental bills and obligations.
In many cases, the fire chief is responsible for running the fire department, while the board of fire commissioners is responsible for running the fire chief. In our case, the volunteer fire chief “serves at the sole pleasure of the board of fire commissioners.” For those of you whose cages I rattled when I wrote that I “reluctantly earned the rank of deputy chief,” does my cynicism make a bit more sense now? At least in our case, the rank of chief officer was not an enviable one. On one hand, we want to do the right thing by our firefighters and get them all of the equipment, apparatus, and training that they need to stay safe and do the