FIRE CHIEF WILL HAVE TO MANAGE
You can’t blame fire Chief Steve Dongworth for being glum about a $4.5-million shortfall in this year’s budget. No one likes to have to make do with less money than they were expecting.
Still, if city council is going to show any sign of taming the inexorable increase in property taxes, senior managers such as Dongworth are going to have to, well, manage their departments.
“You don’t get to lose that without some pain, and we’re going through some of that pain right now,” Dongworth says of the fiscal trimming.
“Any further reductions (will) have an impact on the front-line service that the citizens see. We are at that point where there is no more in the cupboard to give up.”
The threat of compromised service is the first response of many managers confronted with having to do some penny pinching, so Calgarians shouldn’t be surprised that Dongworth would invite the image of fire trucks showing up later than previously — or what, not at all?
The reduction amounts to about two per cent of the department’s budget, according to Dongworth. Compared to the budget decreases that have been addressed by the private sector in recent years, that’s not at all unreasonable.
Whether you were to talk to an oilsands CEO or the owner of your local flower shop, a two per cent drop in revenue, while unpleasant, shouldn’t be something that can’t be absorbed by the department.
Ironically, the sum Dongworth is having to work without, as a percentage, almost mirrors the increase the department gave its unionized workers last year in a one-year agreement.
“From our perspective, we definitely recognize the challenges that the City of Calgary is in economically. The membership and the association leadership felt it was a very fair offer,” firefighters’ union president Mike Carter said last February of the 2.5 per cent wage increase his members received.
No doubt his members did judge such a generous offer as “fair,” given it was the height of the recession. A few months later, the provincial government reached a two-year deal with teachers that included no wage increases. Nurses appear poised to accept the same terms in an upcoming vote.
If the city wants to protect front-line services, as Dongworth hopes, it should stop being a pushover every time it sits down to negotiate with firefighters and other unions.
A probationary firefighter earns $64,537 a year, while those with five years’ experience receive $99,252, along with extra pay for working evenings — to say nothing of benefits.
Only about four per cent of calls involve actual fires, so it’s possible that Dongworth and his managers are going to have to revisit the department’s priorities. Incidents of a medical nature — which accounted for approximately 45 per cent of calls in 2017 — are a provincial responsibility, notes Coun. Shane Keating.
“I don’t mind using the fire department to complement the province’s (emergency) response time when we can, and within reason, but I’m not in favour of that being the determining factor in where and how we build fire halls,” Keating has said.
Certainly, the fire department faces challenges protecting a growing city — especially one swelling at the edges — but times of restraint are opportunities to be creative, to institute new ways of doing things. We’re confident the department is up to the task.
Times of restraint are opportunities to be creative, to institute new ways of doing things.