I was just elected president of the Fire Company.
Like other fire companies, we're in a free-fall, both financially ($14,000 deficit this year) and in terms of membership (we're down to 12 active responders).

Only 11% of our operating budget comes from municipal tax revenue, 2% comes from investments, and the rest comes from our own fundraising work. It's killing us.

I want our income to be:

60% tax sources
20% investments
20% fundraising activities

within 5 years.

Has anyone taken a company this way? Any pointers?

If your goal is to tap into more public funds, it helps to put a pretty face on the process. Most folks already feel taxed to death.

Getting a bigger share of tax revenue is usually a tough sales job. There are public relations firms that specialize in this type of stuff, especially if you need to go the referendum route. I can envision a tongue-in-cheek campaign where you only put out 11% of the fire...


I always wondered if Fire Departments try to file claims with the home owner's insurance for service rendered for putting out a fire, or send the home owner a bill. It seems like it would be a reasonable expense item, just like hiring someone to pick up the debris or demolish the house after the fire.

We do so many other things besides fires that insurance cost recovery is not really a worthwhile option.
I wonder if car crashes have anything available.

Martin,

Are you fire only or do you run EMS?

Our county a couple of years ago started to bill for ambulance service via the user’s insurance company. EMS billing monies do have limits on how they can be used (patient care only- ambulances, supplies), but has freed up some monies for the fire side of things.

A couple of years ago the county also started tiered Fire Tax Districts, with one rate for urban and another for suburban, which has helped a little.

We have also added some fundraisers, Sportsman’s raffle, Christmas Tree sales, extra bingo, direct mailing w/ family portrait bonus. We are always looking for ways to raise funds.

Pete

Does your Fire Company has EMS attached to it? Or you guys just do FF?

You can look at what Giulliani did in NYC around 1992 to keep firehouses open. He screwed the most advanced EMS system in America but kept FDNY going quite strong.

Fire/Rescue/Marine, EMS went paid 10 years ago or so. We have been asked - many times - to run QRS with an EMT, we've turned it down - nobody has time for the 4,552 hours a year of training for that.

We need only $120,000 to $130,000 to operate, and I already found $10,000 I can save next year on a variety of things, by the time I get it all worked out, I expect to get the operating budget down to about $105,000. $31,000 of that is insurance, and that's NOT going down...We're bulk buying fuel and we're legally allowed to burn whatever the hell we want in our trucks without most of the taxes.

But in the end, we spend 80% of our time on fundraising, 15% on administration (more in my case) and only 5% on emergency services. We're beyond "somethings gotta give" and we're at "looking for ways to roll the trucks at all".

Martin:

When I was with a volunteer with one fire dept we had some creative ways to raise mony for the department. This was helped by having a great local government and favorable laws.

1) Call out and training honorariums
Each person who responded to call outs was paid a $20.00 honorarium by the local gov. Training nights/sessions were $10.00 per person. This money was paid to our firefighters association which in turn "donated" the money to the fire department.

2) Training burns
There were always a few old houses/barns that people want removed. Once all the legalities were taken care of, we would go in and use the building for a few small practice burns then a complete burn down. These were burned down for a modest price of anywhere from $500.00 to $1000.00 which the owner did not mind paying as it was much cheaper then having a demo crew come in tear down and cart out the building rubble. It was also good PR for the local community to see and appreciate the training and equipment needed to properly run a fire dept.

3) Forestry Contract. (This may not apply depending on where you live.)
This department is located in a wildland/rural interface area. With many forest/bush/field fires, Forestry often asked for manpower and equipment assistance. We had an agreement that paid for fire fighters and truck/equipment on an hourly basis. The typical cost was $25.00 per fire fighter per hour and upwards of $1000.00 per truck per day.

4) Human created incidents
The people who decided to try and burn their fields/lawns, tree/wood scrap piles etc that always seems to get away on them.
They would call the fire department, we would do our duty and save their properties then ask them to make a modest donation for our efforts. Most people had no issues with this. The difficult people soon found a letter in the mail from the local gov's lawyers. The letter would outline the people's negligence and our costs and the danger we faced along with a request of the name of their insurance company. These people usually made a donation at this point...Those who did not faced the wrath of the insurance company.