2011 Fire Chief s Report. 649 Emergencies

Transcription

1 2011 Fire Chief s Report The year 2011 proved to be busy for the West Barnstable Fire Department (WBFD). We responded to 649 emergency calls, the most in a single year in our history. We started on the path to becoming an accredited fire department. We started an in-house fire recruit training program, and we struggled with the loss of many experienced volunteers. We improved our response times and turnouts. We are now on Facebook. 649 Emergencies In 2011 the WBFD responded to 649 emergency calls. This is a record number of calls for us. It represents a 14 percent increase in emergency call volume over last year, when we did 569 emergency calls. The staff of the WBFD deserves a great deal of credit for their ability and their dedication. The WBFD is handling these calls with a mostly volunteer force 45 volunteers and five career firefighters. Additionally, we are responding to emergency medical service (EMS) calls with an Advance Life Support (ALS) Ambulance in eight minutes or less 95 percent of the time (up from 87 percent last year). This is as good a response as any fire department or ambulance service career, combination or volunteer in Massachusetts. We are meeting or exceeding the national response standards (NFPA 1720) for fires at least fifty percent of the time, by assembling six firefighters and an engine at the location of a fire in less than 14 minutes, and we will improve upon this. Measuring ourselves against national standards is one way you can be assured that your fire department is effective and professional. Every three months, the WBFD publishes a performance report that measures our responses and activities against national standards. You can view this report at our website or visit the fire station. Lower Insurance Premiums Many West Barnstable homeowners and businesses are experiencing lower fire insurance premiums because of the improvements at the WBFD over the past five years. On May 1, 2011, the Insurance Services Office (ISO) announced its new fire protection rating for West Barnstable. West Barnstable earned a Class 3 rating when operating with fire hydrants and a Class 6 when operating in areas without hydrants Emergency Calls Animal Rescue 1 Assist Police 7 Automatic Fire Alarm (AFA) 55 Burning without a permit 8 Carbon Monoxide 19 Cellar/Water Pumping 7 Dumpster Fire 0 Elevator Rescue 1 Emergency Medical Service (EMS) 303 Explosion/Rupture/Overheat 1 Hazardous Materials 9 Motor Vehicle Crashes With Injury 44 Without Injury 13 Verses Pedestrian 1 Motor Vehicle Fire 1 Mutual Aid Sent EMS 44 Building Fire 6 Motor Vehicle Crash 17 Standby/Coverage 13 Oil Burner Malfunction 3 Public Assist 19 Structure Fires Chimney 3 Cooking/Kitchen 3 Electrical 2 Utility Pole Fire/Wires Down 29 Unfounded/Mistake/False 29 Water Rescue 1 Wildland Fire 11 The Insurance Services Office (ISO) is an independent private insurance organization that evaluates the effectiveness of each community s fire department. Each fire department is given an ISO Rating (officially called a Public Protection Class Rating) of between 1 and 10. A Class 1 rating is the best and a Class 10 rating means no effective fire protection. Insurance companies use the ISO rating, among other factors, to determine the homeowner insurance rates and commercial fire insurance rates for a community.

2 The ISO inspects and audits each fire department to determine the rating. The ISO rating is based upon how well a fire department is trained, how well equipped it is, how well its dispatch center operates, how many firefighters and trucks it turns out to a first alarm fire, how well it tests and maintains its equipment and how much water is available for firefighting. The West Barnstable Fire Department s ISO Rating is Class 3 when it is operating within 1000 feet of a fire hydrant, and it is a Class 6 when operating in an area without fire hydrants. The only reason the department s ISO rating drops from a 3 to a 6 in the non-hydrant areas is the lack of water for firefighting. Our Class 6 rating is a significant improvement over our previous Class 9 rating. Of the 380 fire departments in Massachusetts, the West Barnstable Fire Department s ISO rating of 3 (within the hydrant district) places it among the top 62 fire departments in the state. West Barnstable is among the top 2662 fire departments in the United States, which is the top 5 percent of all departments nationally. You may read a complete copy of our ISO rating report on the WBFD website at Low Fire Losses Our community experienced very low fire losses in The fire department handled fires in property worth a total of $1,853,900 with damages of only $15,250. This bears out what the new ISO rating says, that the WBFD is highly effective and results in lower losses. Another measure of our effectiveness is to compare West Barnstable fire losses to other communities with populations between 2500 and 5000 people. Communities the size of West Barnstable average $285,000 of fire damage each year. Volunteer Turnover In 2011, thirteen volunteer firefighters left the WBFD. In April, Firefighter Todd Ostrom moved to Florida and Firefighter/EMT Alyssa Beaty joined the Navy. Then in June, the Hyannis Fire Department hired Firefighter Dave Webb the week he finished his recruit training with the WBFD. The Yarmouth Fire Department hired Firefighter/Paramedic Derrick Irving in July. Then on August 3, 2011, five WBFD volunteers, Lieutenant Christel Kalweit, Firefighter/EMT Jay Charlonne, Firefighter/Paramedic Ronnie Mansbach, Firefighter/EMT Nathan Buckler and Firefighter/EMT Matt White all left for career firefighter jobs at the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR). Of 150 applicants for nine positions at the MMR Fire Department seven of twelve finalists for the positions were from the WBFD. In the fall, Captain Matt James and Firefighter Charlie Hallett left the department after each serving for almost a decade. As year-end approached, the Rochester NH Fire Department hired Seasonal Firefighter Kaitlin Olsen. We ended the year with retirement of Firefighter Jeff Nemec after 32 years of service as a volunteer.

3 In 2011, the WBFD lost a combined 92 years of experience, training and service. That is a serious concern for the department, especially when you consider that many of those who left were on track to be our next generation of officers and managers. Of the thirty-two applicants we considered for volunteer firefighter positions in 2011, thirty-one were openly looking to serve with the WBFD to get the training and experience they need to get a career firefighting position with another department. When asked why they are applying to the WBFD most applicants say fire chiefs and firefighters told them that the WBFD is a great place to get the training and experience needed to land a career firefighting job. We celebrate how well regarded our firefighters are by departments in our region that are hiring full-time staff. However, adding to our dilemma is the fact that none of the fire departments in our region will allow their career firefighters to continue volunteering for the WBFD. This is not the norm elsewhere in Massachusetts or the country. Statewide, there are about 500 career firefighters who also serve as volunteer firefighters. Being in a region where career firefighters are not allowed to volunteer makes the situation of having our volunteers hired by surrounding career departments much more difficult to manage than in other parts of the country. Todd Ostrom served with the WBFD for seven years. He came to lots of emergency calls and helped with most department events. He had a strong record of spending his on-call duty nights at the fire station. Alyssa Beaty was a reliable and competent member of the WBFD for two years before she decided to leave Cape Cod and join the Navy. She was a great EMT and worked well as part of our team. Matt White, Jay Charlonne, Nate Buckler, Christel Kalweit and Ronnie Mansbach with Chief Maruca on the day they left the WBFD and became career firefighters at the Massachusetts Military Reservation. We never got a chance to find out much about Dave Webb, a West Barnstable resident, since he left us just as he finished training. Derrick Irving gave nine years of volunteer service to the WBFD. Derrick is also a paramedic. Christel Kalweit was one of most active and highly trained volunteers. She was a lieutenant and the leader of Group 3 (one of our four on-call duty groups for nighttime emergency calls). Lt. Kalweit responded to about 40 percent of all of our emergency calls each year and served with the WBFD for six years. She was typically available to respond to daytime calls when other volunteers were out of town at work. Ronnie Mansbach served four years for the WBFD, and was another extremely active member, responding to about 20 percent of our calls each year. Ronnie was also available to respond to a lot of daytime calls. He started with the WBFD as a high school intern and is a paramedic. Jay Charlonne was a six-year veteran of the WBFD who rarely missed training. He was an enthusiastic and outgoing member of the department. He could always be counted on to challenge our old ways of doing things and suggesting new and better solutions.

4 Matt White is both an EMT and a firefighter. He slept at the fire station six to eight nights each month, without pay, in order to provide a second EMT for the ambulance on those nights. Matt was with the WBFD for three years. Nathan Buckler has a great talent for auto extrication and EMS. Nate served with the WBFD for four years. Captain Matt James was our training officer and one of the most talented people to serve at our department. He gave us nine years of volunteer service. Without Matt we now have to find a new training officer at a time when we need to train more replacements. Matt was a key member of our hiring and promotion boards. Charlie Hallett gave us eight years of excellent service as a firefighter and had strong skills for the operation of our trucks and equipment. Charlie is a West Barnstable resident and his proximity to the fire station meant that he would typically be the driver of the second truck to respond. Kaitlin Olsen served summers with the WBFD while attending college and brought a great deal of energy and enthusiasm to the job. She volunteered with us for two years. And finally, but not least, Jeff Nemec retired after serving 32 years as a call/volunteer firefighter. Jeff is among a rapidly shrinking group of long-term volunteer members who bring stability and experience to the team. Replacing all of these people is an enormous task. Managing this turnover among our volunteers is at the heart of solving the department s most difficult problems. This kind of turnover makes it hard for us to develop strong middle and senior managers. It taxes our training program. It causes us to invest an inordinate amount of time, energy and money recruiting and training new volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians (EMTs). It distracts us from making improvements in other aspects of the department. Solving this turnover problem requires help from you and the whole West Barnstable community. A Solution to Turnover: You The WBFD needs a dozen or more West Barnstable residents to become volunteer firefighters and/or emergency medical technicians. Volunteers looking to become career firefighters make excellent firefighters and EMTs. They contribute greatly to the WBFD and they are essential to making our system work; however, we also need a stable base of experienced, long-term community volunteers to balance the department and provide for our future leadership. While the WBFD has had a reputation as a training ground for our neighbors for the past 25 years, the speed at which our volunteers are hired by others each year is accelerating. There are 93 former WBFD volunteers currently serving as career firefighters in our region. Soon we fear that the turnover rate will be so high that we won t be able to train new volunteer firefighters fast enough. This kind of turnover takes a great toll on the department s resources and morale.

5 It takes the WBFD eight to ten months to recruit, hire and provide basic training to a volunteer firefighter before he or she can start responding to emergencies. It takes about three years for a volunteer to be fully trained and highly competent. For the WBFD to continue to provide you with the excellent service you ve come to expect, we have to change our over-reliance on volunteers who are seeking to move on to career firefighting jobs. This is where you come in. Please consider becoming a volunteer firefighter or EMT. Or, if you don t feel that this type of community service is a good fit for you, please help your community by looking around at your family, your neighbors and your friends, and encourage some of them to join us. Why should you volunteer? Have you ever wondered about the sadness and horror a family goes through as they stand on their front lawn watching fire begin to destroy everything they own? Imagine being injured in a car crash and sitting in a tangle of twisted metal and broken glass. Now think about how having their neighbors and friends at their sides in minutes to help them would make a difference. Helping your neighbors and your community brings a level of self-satisfaction that is second to none. Volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians are people like you men and women of all ages and careers. They are students, lawyers, business owners, computer technicians, builders, mechanics, teachers and homemakers. They are people from all walks of life. They are people who will leave their homes and families on a moment s notice to fight a fire or provide medical care to a neighbor. Volunteer Firefighters are professionals who are trained and certified to meet all of the same professional qualifications that career firefighters meet. What are the requirements for joining the WBFD? To join the WBFD you must be between 18 and 65 years of age and in good physical condition. You must be willing to be on-call eight nights each month. You must pass a criminal background check. To join you need no special training, only a desire to help others. The WBFD will provide you with firefighting training. At the end of your training, you will take the Massachusetts Firefighter Certification Exam. All firefighters in Massachusetts must have CPR training, incident command training and basic first aid training. The WBFD provides all of this training to its members. Those wishing to serve as Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) can take a one-semester EMT class at Cape Cod Community College to become an EMT. Other area schools offer EMT programs as well. Members of the WBFD can serve as firefighters or as EMTs or as both. The WBFD trains almost every Tuesday night from 7 PM to 9:00 PM. Come by on a Tuesday night to see what we do and get more information about joining.

6 It is a real commitment, but it will give back to you as well. Make no mistake about it, volunteering as a member of the West Barnstable Fire Department requires a commitment that few are willing to make. You will be required to put in some long and hard hours. Emergencies do not care about time, temperature, birthdays or holidays. On some nights you will be asked to get out of a warm, comfortable bed and respond to an EMS call, a fire or an accident. As a firefighter/emt you can expect to lose sleep, miss meals and push yourself to limits beyond what you thought you were capable of. Take our word for it; what you see on TV or in the movies doesn t begin to describe the reality of fighting a fire or dealing with a serious accident. These are demanding and dangerous tasks. But volunteer firefighting is one of the most rewarding things you can do knowing that you helped make a difference. If you would like more information about becoming a volunteer firefighter or an EMT with the West Barnstable Fire Department, call us at , check out our website at find us on Facebook, or stop by the fire station. A New Recruit Class With the big loss of staff in 2011, the WBFD responded by hiring its largest group of new volunteers ever. In September we started a firefighter recruit class with 14 new members. We expect that the graduates of this class will be certified firefighters by Spring Our fire recruit training class consists of eighteen nights of classroom training and sixteen Saturdays of hands-on practical training for about 150 hours of training. The program prepares the recruits to take the Massachusetts Firefighter I & II Certification Test consisting of three test days (a written test, a skills test and a firefighting test). As we came to the end of the year, our class was down to nine members. Three recruits dropped out, one left to take a job off-cape and one left to join the Navy. The nine recruits are Dave Fetterman, Patrick George, Zac Hammond, Andy Mathieson, Adam Penni, Aaron Selfridge, Chris Straticoglu, Scott Thomas and Allyson Valade. None live in West Barnstable and all are seeking career firefighter positions. Experienced New Members In addition to our recruit class the WBFD added two new members with a great deal of prior experience. Andy Barr, a West Barnstable resident, a retired career fire lieutenant from Mansfield, Massachusetts, and an instructor at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, joined the WBFD as our new Company Training Coordinator. In this role, Andy is providing the staff of the department with a small-group training session each week in addition to our regular Tuesday night drills. This training is designed to provide our firefighters with practice at basic fire attack skills such as deploying hose, raising and working on ladders, using self-contained breathing apparatus and running pumps. We find that this kind of training is most effective when done in small groups ( Companies being the fire service term). All of the drills are based upon national performance standards. Welcome and thank you to Andy for taking on this important task. Kevin Duquette also joined the WBFD in Kevin is a resident of East Sandwich and moved here from Fort Mitchell, Alabama where he was a member of the Fort Mitchell

7 Volunteer Fire Department. Kevin is a certified firefighter, a hazardous materials technician and recently retired from the US Army. Welcome Kevin. Added Responsibilities Engineer Ben Quigley became the department s EMS Officer in As EMS Officer, Ben is our liaison to Cape Cod Hospital, our liaison to the Cape & Islands EMS System, assists with EMT recertification training, purchases EMS supplies for the ambulance, provides quality control/quality assurance review of patient reports and provides staff with information about updates to our treatment protocols. Ben is doing great work for us. In addition to his EMS Officer duties, Ben is a paramedic and our Group 2 leader. Ben is one of only a few volunteer EMS Officers in Southeastern Massachusetts. Firefighter Chuck Marshall volunteered to be the department s Accreditation Manager. (You ll learn more about Accreditation later in this report.) Managing the research, data, reports, maps and paperwork that goes with applying to become an accredited fire department is an enormous task. The vast majority of fire department accreditation managers are full-time administrators. Chuck is doing this for us in his spare time. In 2011, Bob Stolte took on an added responsibility. He is now the coordinator of our Community AED program. This means that Bob is responsible for monitoring the readiness of the automatic defibrillators that the department has stationed around the community (at Sandy Neck, the Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod, the Community Building, Fire HQ, Village Store, Burger King). Bob continues to serve as Chief s Aide. As Chief s Aide he responds to serious events to assist with organizing and managing the incident. Lieutenant Troy Jewett became our training officer. As training officer, Troy plans and executes our Tuesday night training program, manages our recruit training program and provides for individualized training as needed. His new job is heavy on record keeping, scheduling, preparing lesson plans and coordinating instructors. Lt. Jewett is a certified Fire Instructor and has excellent teaching skills. A Changing Role Volunteer Firefighter/Paramedic Scott Mullin, a West Barnstable resident, became our newest Career Firefighter/Paramedic in the spring. Scott filled a vacancy caused by the departure of Firefighter Adam Goode in Scott was one of four WBFD volunteers (Ben Quigley, Derrick Irving, Keith Stranger and Scott Mullin) who were finalists for the job. The hiring committee had a difficult time coming to a final decision because of the excellence of all four finalists. Scott spent 12 weeks at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy this fall, and graduated on December 23, Scott is an excellent addition to our career staff, and the one exception to our woes about having volunteers take jobs as career firefighters. Scott Mullin Graduates from the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy.

8 Ambulance Billing Ambulance billing is the second largest revenue source for the funding of the WBFD. Real Estate Taxes are the largest source. In FY 2011, ambulance receipts totaled $197, and accounted for 12.5 percent of our total funding. While I don t expect any drop in our ambulance revenue in the coming years, I m not sure we can count on it to grow as much as it has in recent years. Medicare sets the payment rates that all government insurance programs (Medicaid, MassHealth, Medicare) pay for medical services. Medicare has been lowering the amount that it pays for ambulance service. In December 2011 we were notified that Medicare was lowering its payments for ambulance service by 2.1 percent. While we set and charge rates that we determine are reasonable and appropriate, government insurance programs ignore what we charge and only pay us the Medicare rate. Private insurance companies and some persons without insurance are the only ones who pay what we actually charge. The problem is that as our community ages, more and more people are on Medicare and fewer have private insurance. This shift will make ambulance billing less profitable in the future. In FY 2011, fifty-two percent (52%) of all of the patients transported in the WBFD ambulance were on some type of government insurance program. Thirty-Eight percent (38%) had private insurance (i.e. Blue Cross, Harvard) and ten percent (10%) had no insurance. You can see the shift in the mix of insurance coverage when you compare this to 2003 (the furthest back our data goes) when only thirty-four percent (34%) of patients were on government insurance, forty-three percent (43%) had private insurance and twenty-three percent (23%) had no insurance. An additional threat to our ambulance-billing program is that Blue Cross/Blue Shield has said it plans to start sending the payments for ambulance service to the patient, not to the ambulance service. This move is designed to make it more difficult for us to collect ambulance payments and pressure us to enter into a contract with Blue Cross for lower rates. Currently, when we bill Blue Cross/Blue Shield for an ambulance run it pays us directly. Under the proposed new Blue Cross policy it will send the money to the patient and make us collect from the patient. For more complete data and financial information about our ambulance billing, see the report titled West Barnstable Fire Department Ambulance Billing & Collection Data FY 2003 to FY 2011, which follows this report. Why Not A Private Ambulance WBFD Ambulance Revenue FY 2000 $61,803 FY 2001 $29,060 FY 2002 $0 FY 2003 $30,925 FY 2004 $62,693 FY 2005 $58,712 FY 2006 $81,485 FY 2007 $123,330 FY 2008 $120,326 FY 2009 $133,084 FY 2010 $135,515 FY 2011 $197,691 At last year s Fire District Annual Meeting, I was asked if we could save money by having a private ambulance company provide EMS in West Barnstable and have the fire department stick to firefighting, rescue, hazardous materials and inspections. The answer is that there is not enough business to support a private ambulance service in West Barnstable. The WBFD bills and collects for ambulance service at a rate that is comparable to what

9 private ambulance companies bill and collect. Our total ambulance revenue in FY 2011 was $197, The cost for a private ambulance company in Massachusetts to staff a single ambulance 24 hours per day, seven days a week, with one paramedic and one EMT, is between $416,000 and $520,000 per year. Then if you add on the cost of purchasing an ambulance at $20,000/year, the cost of stocking the ambulance with supplies at $15,000/year, the cost of maintaining the ambulance and its equipment at $10,000/year and the cost of insuring the ambulance at $5000 per year you are looking at an annual budget of $570,000 (assuming free housing of the ambulance and its crew at the fire station). This results in an annual loss of at least $370,000/year. Even paying paramedics and EMTs at minimum wage doesn t cut costs enough to make a profit in West Barnstable. I sit on two EMS committees that include private ambulance company owners and administrators and I asked them about how their business model works, and what they need to do to make a profit responding to emergency calls. They all answered in chorus that they don t make a profit responding to emergency calls. Their profit comes from transferring patients between hospitals, nursing homes, doctors offices, and labs. They said they only make money (or break even) providing EMS in areas with a high population density where most people have private insurance. They tell me that much of Cape Cod has too low a population density and too many Medicare patients to make a profit. They also explained to me that they needed between $700,000 and $800,000 in revenue for each ambulance they operate to break even. At last year s Fire District meeting, I was also asked how much money the Fire District would save if it didn t provide EMS service. This is a difficult question to answer because it is difficult to break out the costs of any single service we provide given the many resources that are shared across all of our various functions: EMS, fire suppression, hazardous materials response, rescue, inspections and public education. Allocating our electric bill, trash pickup, telephone expenses, building maintenance and similar expenses among our various functions are a difficult and inexact exercise. However, I think if we look at two categories, payroll and the cost of owning/operating the ambulance, we can get a good general picture. If the WBFD did not have an ambulance, instead of five career firefighters we would probably have only two career firefighters to work Monday through Friday from 8AM to 4PM (40 hour workweek), and the station would rely upon volunteers for the other 128 hours each week. Reducing our career payroll by three firefighters would reduce the payroll budget by $350,000. Eliminating our ambulance would reduce the operating budget by about $50,000. So, the approximate cost of operating the EMS side of the WBFD is in the neighborhood of $400,000 per year. Of course, if the WBFD didn t provide ambulance service, who would? A private ambulance company is highly unlikely to take on the project unless we guaranteed to subsidize their losses, an amount that is at least $400,000 per year. And then they would insist upon additional payments so they make a profit. Similarly, our neighboring fire departments aren t going to take on our EMS needs at a financial loss and cost to their taxpayers, and their ambulances are too far away to provide eight-minute response times to most of West Barnstable. Operating our own fire department based ambulance continues to be the best choice for our community. Elected Official Health Insurance At last year s Annual District Meeting, Dan Mullin retired as our Fire District

10 Moderator. In his retirement comments he told us all that as an elected fire district official Massachusetts Law entitled him to receive health insurance as if he was a full-time employee of the district, but he never elected to take the insurance because he didn t think it was fair and reasonable to do so. We all need to thank Dan for his selfless act. The Prudential Committee, Treasurer and I were reflecting on Dan s comments and realized that we have been lucky that nobody serving as an elected official for the West Barnstable Fire District is on the district s health insurance plan. Providing health insurance to one elected official with a family would cost us $15,000 in FY Upon further reflection we decided that we needed to take steps to ensure that anyone elected to a fire district position was not going to become eligible for health insurance benefits. Health insurance for elected officials would be a budget buster. At the Annual Meeting you will be asked to vote on a resolution that the Prudential Committee pursue special legislation that would exempt the West Barnstable Fire District from providing health insurance to elected officials. The Town of Sandwich has successfully done this and we are basing our legislation on the Sandwich legislation. After consulting with State Representative Randy Hunt we are confident that this legislation will be enacted if District Meeting approves the resolution. Community Risk In 2011, the WBFD completed the department s first ever Community Risk Analysis. The study s goal was to determine what community risks the WBFD should have comprehensive programs to address. Having this analysis tells us what types of performance standards we need and helps us improve by focusing our training, equipment and staffing. The Community Risk Analysis measured dozens of risks based upon their frequency: the risk of injury or death, economic harm, environmental harm, social harm and level of planning complexity. Much of the research and data was assembled and analyzed by Lt. Christel Kalweit and Firefighter/EMT Chuck Marshall, on their own time. You can read the entire report on the WBFD website at The Community Risk Analysis will be used as the basis for creating a WBFD Standards of Cover document in This document will set forth specific performance standards for the WBFD to measure its effectiveness against in the identified categories of risk. Then, both you and the department will be able to measure how well the WBFD is providing service and if our resources are being allocated properly. Accreditation The WBFD has started down the path of becoming an accredited fire department by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI). The CFAI accreditation process requires a comprehensive self-assessment and evaluation of the WBFD that examines past, current and future service levels and performance, and then compares them to industry best practices. The accreditation process leads to improved service delivery by determining community risk and safety needs, evaluating the performance of the WBFD and establishing a method for achieving continuous organizational improvement. The most demanding element of the CFAI accreditation process is the self-assessment. The self-assessment process will promote excellence and quality improvement at the WBFD by:

11 * Assuring the community that the WBFD has definite missions and objectives appropriate to West Barnstable. * Providing detailed evaluation of services. * Identifying strengths & weaknesses. * Creating methods for addressing deficiencies. * Encouraging professional growth for the department & its staff. The self-analysis requires the WBFD to address 244 detailed competencies in such areas as financial controls, planning, human resources management, facilities, training, legal compliance and emergency operations. The CFAI estimates that it takes 700 to 1000 staff hours to complete the self-analysis process. Firefighter Chuck Marshall (on his own time) and AmeriCorps Volunteer Meghan Quirk (whose time is funded by the AmeriCorps grant) will be putting in many of these hours to help the department complete the self-assessment. With all of us facing the need to do more with less and the importance of justifying our expenditures, the accreditation process will make it possible for you to see the direct link between expenditures and quality services. Accreditation provides well-defined criteria to measure WBFD performance and efficiency. To learn more about fire department accreditation go to Holding Taxes Down We at the WBFD understand and appreciate that each family in West Barnstable pays a lot of real estate taxes to support our department. That is why we strive to provide the highest quality services for your money. We also work hard to obtain alternative funding sources such as grants, donations and ambulance billings. Every member of the WBFD personally donates hundreds of hours of their time to making the department run efficiently. As a result we have been able to keep the West Barnstable Fire District tax levy stable for the past five years. Since FY 2009, the District s tax levy has only increased 3.99 percent, an average of slightly less than 1 percent annually. The tax levy is the total amount of taxes that the Fire District collects from its taxpayers. While your individual property taxes may have fluctuated in recent years, this fluctuation is not a result of the Fire District collecting more or less taxes. Individual fluctuations are the result of changes in property values relative to other properties, exemptions and abatements. The West Barnstable Fire District Tax Levy (total taxes collected): FY 2009 $1,303,867 FY 2010 $1,332, % FY 2011 $1,345, % FY 2012 $1,344, % FY 2013 (Proposed) $1,356, %

12 Deputy Fire Chief At the 2012 Fire District Annual Meeting the department will be asking you to amend the Fire District By-Laws to eliminate the position of Deputy Fire Chief from the by-laws. While we may still have a Deputy Fire Chief at some time in the future, the position in the form required by the by-laws cannot be filled. Over the past year we have advertised the position across Cape Cod and did not get a single application for the job. No current member of the department wants the job. It is clear that we are not going to find someone with the qualifications to be second in command of the WBFD who is willing to do the job for $11,000/year. In our region, there are so few primarily volunteer fire departments that there is not a critical mass of volunteers with the skill sets needed to fill the position. (If we were in another area of the country, such as Long Island, New York where all of the fire departments are volunteer, there would be plenty of people to fill the role.) The solution, at least for now, is to take the tasks and responsibilities of the Deputy Fire Chief and break them up among a diverse group of individuals. These individuals could then focus on one or two smaller roles, rather than take on the entire deputy s job. For instance, Firefighter Chuck Marshall is serving as our accreditation manager, a role that might normally be filled by the Deputy Chief. Captain David Paananen has taken on the responsibilities of managing legal compliance with the state ethics laws, fire hydrant inspection/testing, hose testing and ladder testing. Lt. Bill Murray manages our compliance with reporting patient information to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Firefighter Scott Mullin is responsible for investigating accidents and injuries involving WBFD staff and apparatus. All of these are functions that might typically be done by a Deputy Chief or an Assistant Chief. Engine 294 Troubles I m frustrated to report that I believe our primary fire engine, E- 294, is a lemon. We purchased E-294 new in It will be ten years old this summer. The underside of the truck is terribly rusted out. The frame rails are rusted and flaking to such an extent that they could fail within the next two to three years. The cradle that holds the water tank in place needs immediate replacement. The first warning that this problem was developing was when the steel straps holding the fuel tank in place failed due to rust, allowing the fuel tank to fall out. In my opinion no ten-year old fire engine should have this much rust. Additionally, E-294 has required an unusually high number of mechanical repairs for a fire truck its age. We ve had to replace steering boxes and replace the rear springs. Window cranks have failed and been replaced multiple times. The air compressor gauges and foam tank level gauge have both failed at least twice in recent years. We ve had trouble with the doors not staying closed. For the past two years we ve been trying to get the manufacturer, Pierce Fire Apparatus (largest manufacturer of fire trucks in the country), to acknowledge that the rust is a manufacturing or materials problem. At first, Pierce claimed that calcium chloride ice melt on the roads is causing the rust. Then they

13 claimed that Federal environmental regulations have resulted in automotive paints and primers that don t stick to the metal surfaces as well as they used to. Next Pierce had one of their engineers come and inspect the truck, and then they ignored our complaints for about year. In the meantime the rust has gotten worse. Finally, the Pierce Fire Apparatus is willing to pay ten thousand dollars towards the cost of repairing the rust. I estimate that the cost of repairing the rust is between $50,000 and $60,000. At the Annual Fire District Meeting, there will be an Article for you to vote on that will appropriate money to fix the rust. The plan is to remove the body the water tank and the pump from the frame, sandblast the frame to remove all of the rust, repair the rust damage, prime, paint and undercoat the frame. I expect this will give us another ten years service from the truck. In 2002 we paid $380,000 for E-294. Purchasing the same truck today would cost about $450,000. We paid a premium price for what we all believed was a premium product that would give us twenty-five to thirty years of service. It is normal to do some type of mid-life rehabilitation on fire apparatus to ensure a long service life, but the pending rust repair is premature and too extensive to fit into the category of a typical mid-life rehabilitation of a premium fire engine. As a result of the rust, and other mechanical problems we experience with E-294 I don t expect we will get much more than another ten years out of this truck. To learn more about how E-294 is used by the WBFD look it up on our website at The Other Trucks Our other trucks in are good shape and we aren t experiencing any unusual problems. Ladder 297 (L-297) was built the same year (2002) and by the same manufacturer as Engine 294 (Pierce) and it has none of the problems that E-294 has. I expect this truck to last thirty years with a relatively simple mid-life refurbishment in another five years. L-297 has proved to be workhorse for the WBFD because it is a multi-purpose truck we use as a ladder truck, an engine and a rescue truck. You may recall that we purchased this truck with Federal Grant money. Replacing it today would cost us at least $850,000. Engine-Tender 296 (ET-296) is a 1985 Pierce and is in excellent condition. It underwent a refurbishment six years ago and I expect it will continue to serve us for another decade or more. We used to call this truck an Engine-Tanker and now we call it an Engine-Tender. This change in terminology generates a great deal of hot air in some fire service circles. Tender is a west coast and federal term for a fire truck that carries more than 1000 gallons of water (ET-296 carries 3000 gallons). On the east coast we always called these trucks tankers. After September 11, 2001, there has been a movement to standardize what we call things in the fire service and the west coast won this debate. Ambulance 293 (A-293) is a 2007 ambulance built on a Chevy medium duty truck chassis. We are planning to replace A-293 in 2017 and each year we are putting $25,000 away in a savings account, the Ambulance Stabilization Fund, to pay for the replacement truck. This ambulance is running well and serves our community well. Tender 286 (T-286) is a 1991 Military Fuel Truck we obtained for free from the Federal Surplus Property Program and converted to a 5000-gallon water tender. This truck was instrumental in improving our ISO rating in the non-hydrant areas of our community. It is in

14 good shape and should serve us well for at least twenty years. Breaker 295 (B-295) is our brush breaker. It is old and tired, but since it gets limited use we aren t planning to replace it anytime in the near future. It was built in 1982 on a 1967 military chassis. We ve started winterizing it each fall and keeping it at Station 3 (1633 Main Street) over the winter, and then putting it back in service in the spring. On our list of projects is a plan to replace its aging gasoline engine and manual transmission with a used diesel engine and automatic transmission. We have an old truck parked behind the fire station that we obtained from the Commonwealth for free, and we intend to use the diesel engine and automatic transmission from that truck to someday repower B-295. Squad 287 (S-287) is a 2004 Ford F-350 4x4 pickup truck with a utility body. It carries our hazardous materials/spill response materials, a generator and lights, a portable pump and property salvage supplies. The truck is in good shape and easily has ten to fifteen years of life in it. This truck was formerly our Patrol 290 brush fire truck, but we had to remove the water tank when we found that the truck was overweight. Car 280 (C-280) is a 2007 four-door Chevy 4x4 pickup truck that we use to follow-up A- 293 with extra personnel, as a command post and as an administrative truck. This truck will need new tires in the fall of 2012, but is in otherwise good condition. Forestry 290 (F-290) is new to our fleet. It is a 2012 Ford F-450 4x4 flatbed truck with 200 gallons of water, hose and tools for fighting wildland fires. The truck was purchased entirely with donations collected by the West Barnstable Fire & EMS Association for $32,750. Ford of Hyannis sold us the truck at a discount and then donated a brush guard for the front end. Thank you to Ford of Hyannis. Also, thank you to all of the people who donated towards the purchase of the truck. Captain David Paananen and Lt. Ed Clough are assembling the water tank, pump, compartments and other features of the truck in house. It should be ready for operations by April If you go to our website at you can see detailed information about the mission and use of each of these trucks, as well as a list of the equipment they carry. Fire Station Renovation At last year s Annual Fire District Meeting, you voted to appropriate $525,000 for Phase I Renovations to the fire station, and to conduct a space needs study of the fire station and a study to determine how to best use Station 3 (the old fire station on Route 6A). As I write this report, early in 2012, we are about to go out to bid for a general contractor to do the renovation work and we expect the project to be finished by fall of The renovations to the fire station will include, among other things, new heating for the apparatus bays, replacing the air conditioning system, new exterior doors, structural repairs to the floors, replacing the basement bulkhead, installing a grease trap, adding electrical outlets, relocating radio, telephone and computer equipment out of the damp basement, and upgrading the electrical service from 200 amps to 400 amps. Additionally, 16 parking spaces will be added to the parking lot, parking lot drainage will be repaired and improved, and we are adding lighting to the parking lot. Other than the added parking spaces and exterior lighting, the fire station will look the same once the renovations are complete. Thank you for supporting this project.

15 Stained Glass Window During the windstorm on October 29, 2011, the stained glass window in the peak of the fire station roof was blown out and shattered. Retired Chief John P. Jenkins donated the window to the WBFD when the fire station was built in The department is working with our insurance company, Rogers & Gray, to arrange for the repair or replacement of the window. We also plan to install a storm window over the new stained glass window to prevent this from happening again. Regional Dispatch & CMED There was a lot in the newspaper this past year about regional fire and police dispatch for Cape Cod, and about CMED (the medical communications system between ambulances and hospitals) funding. Let me tell you about how these two issues apply to West Barnstable. The Barnstable Sheriff s Office (BSO) currently dispatches the WBFD. They have been our dispatcher for more than 50 years. When you call 911, the Barnstable Police Department answers the telephone. When the police determine the call is for a fire or for EMS in West Barnstable they transfer the call to the fire department dispatcher at the BSO. There is a onebutton transfer between the police 911 telecommunicator and the BSO fire dispatcher. Currently we pay the BSO $10,000 for dispatching services. The Barnstable Police do not charge us for answering 911 calls. The BSO has notified us that they will be raising our dispatching costs in FY 2013 by $9.25/per call or about $6000 per year. They have indicated that our cost will go up again by an equal amount the following year, so that in FY 2014 our cost for dispatching will be about $22,000 per year. Even with this increase in cost the price for dispatching is less than we could do it any other way. We ve been getting a great deal for decades and dispatching at the added cost is still a good deal. Over the past year, the police and fire departments on Cape Cod conducted a detailed study to help determine if we should create a central police and fire 911-dispatch center for the entire Cape. The study (Barnstable County 911 Regional Feasibility Study dated December 12, 2011 by Intertech Associates) recommended that the Cape adopt a multi-center model with two or three regional dispatch centers serving all of the police and fire departments. The projected Capewide savings for such a center would be $4.5 million per year. Based upon the study s projections, all but four communities would see their dispatching costs go down under the regional plan, unfortunately West Barnstable is one of the four communities that would see their dispatching costs increase if the plan was implemented. The WBFD would experience an estimated 270 percent increase in dispatching costs under the proposed regional plan. The Barnstable CMED radio system connects all of the ambulances on Cape Cod with the hospital emergency rooms. Since the early 1970 s, CMED has been funded and operated by the Barnstable Sheriff s Office (BSO) with no cost to any fire department. According to the BSO

16 the system costs about $457,000 per year to operate. Because the BSO has experienced budget cuts (the BSO is a state agency and its budget is set by the legislature and the governor) the Sheriff has asked that fire departments pay a fee of $5.57 per radio patch between an ambulance and a hospital emergency room to support CMED. The Sheriff also asked the hospitals to pay an equal amount. In October 2011 the BSO started billing fire departments for CMED service. The change from having free CMED service, to having to pay for CMED service, created budget difficulties for fire departments and generated a lot of political maneuvering and meetings. All of the Cape fire departments have refused to pay the bills, and negotiations between the Sheriff, fire departments, the hospitals and political leaders continue as the year ended. If the WBFD pays the $5.57 per radio patch to the hospital then our dispatching costs will increase by about $2000 per year. Between the increase in our dispatching contract with the BSO and the added fees for CMED, our cost for dispatching in FY 2013 will increase from $10,000 to about $18,000 per year. They will increase again in FY 2014 to about $24,000 per year. Grant Awards The WBFD was the recipient of three significant grants in We received a grant from AmeriCorps Cape Cod that provides us with an AmeriCorps volunteer on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 10 months. This grant is worth $14,500. Our AmeriCorps volunteer is Meghan Quirk from Rochester, New York. Megan recently graduated from Gettysburg College. She is working with the WBFD to help us prepare our Accreditation Self-Assessment Document, and to help us create water supply preplans for each neighborhood. She also works with our Explorer Post, a junior firefighter program for high school students. The Southeastern Massachusetts EMS Council provided a laptop and software to the WBFD as grant to help us transition from paper patient reports to electronic reports. The laptop, a Panasonic Toughbook with a value of $3500, and the software for completing patient reports from AmbuPro with a value of $1700, are in use in our ambulance. This grant couldn t have come at a better time. Last year the Commonwealth implemented a comprehensive data collection requirement for each patient we transport in our ambulance. This laptop and software allows us to meet the state s requirements. Lieutenant Bill Murray has managed the training of our staff with regard to the implementation of the electronic reports. The Southeastern Regional Homeland Security Council awarded a grant to the WBFD that allowed us to purchase an Air Supply Trailer for regional needs. The trailer is used for filling air bottles at fires, hazardous materials incidents and water rescue operations. The trailer is a regional resource and available to any of the Cape fire department. The trailer cost $78,000 and was entirely funded by the federal grant. Chief Gets A Degree In 2011 I received a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Fire Department Administration from SUNY Empire State College. This is in addition to my Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Business Administration from the Boston University School of Management (Class of 1981) and my Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the New England School of Law (Class of 1990). I had been pursuing this degree prior to my appointment as fire chief, however the Prudential Committee made the completion of this additional degree a job requirement. I obtained this degree at my own

17 expense. I also received my credentials as fire chief in 2011 from the Massachusetts Fire Service Commission. The credentialing of fire chiefs in Massachusetts is a new concept. It is voluntary. It is a step towards making sure that Massachusetts fire chiefs meet minimum standards in areas of education, training and experience. I hope that it is the first step toward requiring all fire chiefs to have the education and skills needed to bring excellence to the fire service. Excellence It is the goal of the West Barnstable Fire Department to provide you with excellent service. Booker T. Washington said, Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way. Firefighting, EMS and rescue are common activities in every city, town and village in America. There are more than 30,000 fire departments in America. What sets them all apart from each other is how well they serve their community. Our high ISO rating, our low fire losses, our fast response times, our better than average turnouts, all while relying on a primarily volunteer force, reflect our efforts to be uncommon. In 2012 the members of the West Barnstable Fire Department will continue to improve its operations and continue to work hard towards excellence. Our firefighters and emergency medical technicians work hard to be the best, and I am confident that we will achieve excellence. I look forward to leading this effort. Respectfully submitted, Fire Chief Joe Maruca