Orland Fire Protection District Budget process opened to public for first time
OFPD – For the first time in its 42 year official history,
the Orland Fire Protection District opened its budget deliberations to the public and began a
line-by-line review of district spending.
OFPD President Jim Hickey and Acting Fire Chief Raymond Kay
led the first of three public hearings with board members who attended the
meeting Blair Rhode, Chris Evoy and Glenn Michalek.
Hickey said the new process is designed so that interested
taxpayers can understand what has been a very complicated budget process in the
past.
“We have divided the budget into three parts. Essential
spending, spending that is important and spending that is considered beneficial
but not always essential to the operation of the Fire District,” Hickey said.
“We have placed district services and spending in each
category so that we can ensure that we preserve and protect the high quality of
service that the taxpayers are paying for, and to find ways to trim the budget
to make it more in line with the challenges of today’s economy and with the
spending reflected by other public fire agencies. Our spending is way up there
and there is a false notion that spending and quality service are linked.”
“On Tuesday (Oct. 4) we went through the first part of the
budget reviewing eight areas of service, examining the spending needs
line-by-line. It was a fascinating process to review what we are doing and how
we can do it better and also more efficiently and cost-effectively,” Hickey
said.
Hickey said department heads are being asked to bring their
budget needs to the board for review, categorizing them in three areas of need
from the most important to those that can be more carefully managed.
“The taxpayers are demanding that we look at spending at the
fire district,” said Rhode. “The taxes for the fire district are the highest
after spending for the local school districts. As a government agency, we have
a responsibility to the public not just to give them the best fire protection
services but to do so in the most cost-effective manner with an eye towards
protecting the hard-earned dollars that they put in to our government.”
Hickey said that the district will hold two more budget
meetings on Tuesday Oct. 11 and Tuesday Oct. 18, both beginning at 5 pm. The
district’s regularly scheduled board meeting is Tuesday Oct. 25, also at 5 pm.
Since the new board was sworn in, the district has saved
more than $1 million, mainly through personnel changes and cutbacks in costs
from reducing media consulting costs by $12,000 to reducing some non-essential
services.
Evoy said that he is hopeful that the District’s new
Springfield Lobbyist will help identify funding sources that will be used to
help cover costs that now come from taxpayer pockets. The District’s lobbyist
in Springfield is Cheryl Axley who was hired in June. Axley joins consultant
Cindy Katsenes who is working for the district pro bono and is looking at ways
to better manage the district's personnel budget and assignments.
Hickey said that he is hopeful the district could qualify
for grants as much as $500,000 to off-set spending for next year’s budget.
“Our goal is to return money to the taxpayers who continue
to do their part by supporting this district,” Hickey said. “We need to do our
part.”
Kay said that the previous budget process included the submittal
of a request by those who administer the budget, followed by administrative
reduction.
“In the past, the budget preparers did not realize what
their budget contained until they saw it again in January when it was
distributed,” Kay said.
“This year, after reviewing the sum of all proposals, budget
preparers were asked to revisit their budgets with the task of reducing their
requests. As a result of this activity, 1 million dollars were
collectively reduced across all budget submittals.”
Each of the budget preparers now have an idea of which
components are more critical or not and make adjustments accordingly. Kay
added the preparers are involved in decision-making.
“Each of these people have more of a sense of engagement in
their particular areas,” Kay said. “They also understand that this may not
be the final action on their budget because they are looking at only a segment
of the whole and do not have the opportunity to see the big picture. I
expect that the Board of Trustees will further address these requests to
determine a final budget.”
The Orland district area was served by a volunteer fire
force that began sometime in 1894, but the District was officially founded in 1973.
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