By David Reevely
Fire service set to expand, while budget declines
A growing city and past mergers suggest Ottawa’s fire service is going to get more expensive. David Reevely investigates where the money will come from.
If Ottawa’s newly merged fire service is going to expand, Centretown residents might want to ask who’s going to pay for it.
“I expect that as growth continues, the resources will be made available,” says the new fire chief, Richard Larabie. “There is a level of service that exists now, and that will certainly continue or be enhanced as a result of amalgamation.”
Somerset ward Coun. Elisabeth Arnold also says that service levels aren’t in danger.
“There are existing levels of service mandated by provincial legislation and staffing levels mandated by the collective bargaining agreement with the firefighters, and those will be preserved,” Arnold says.
But where the money is going to come from as professional firefighters move into new areas is an open question.
Currently, downtown Ottawa — along with Nepean and Gloucester, and parts of Kanata and Cumberland — gets its fire protection from about 950 professional firefighters. They’re paid an average of about $56,000 a year each, before benefits.
Other parts of the new city, with lower population densities, are served by “volunteer” firefighters, who are paid about $10 an hour while they’re actually fighting fires and are on call 24 hours a day for free.
In total, the new fire service is slated to cost $71.1 million this year, of which about $66 million is salaries. Over the next three years, the transition board’s projection has the fire service’s budget declining about $1 million. But the population in rural areas is growing as the city expands. Higher population densities demand faster response times and more firefighters and equipment be available to combat blazes before they spread.
Areas of the new city now served by professional firefighters pay an extra property tax levy to fund that service (as do areas directly served by OC Transpo). Taxpayers in growing parts of the city, such as West Carleton and Osgoode, might not be prepared for the shock of the extra demand.
“Before the end of last year, I submitted a bill to the township council,” says West Carleton volunteer fire captain Paul Carrier, who supervises 18 to 20 firefighters. “Covering the first of June to the 30th of November, plus the whole training budget for 2000, the total was about $10,500. Compare that to the $70-75,000 that one full-time firefighter makes when you factor in benefits. I don’t think the taxpayers of West Carleton and Goulbourn and other rural areas are going to want to change that… They certainly can’t afford to pay for that level of service right away.”
But in other recently amalgamated cities in Ontario, volunteer firefighters haven’t lasted long.
In London, for example, volunteer firefighters were abolished three years after a 1993 municipal merger because of confusion over who was responsible for which fires.
If Ottawa follows London’s example, it would be good news for Bill Cole, the head of the Ottawa Professional Firefighters Association, whose union doesn’t include volunteers.
The union, also newly merged, reached a quick deal with Chief Larabie last month to stop people who work as professional firefighters in urban areas from volunteering in rural parts of town. The change, which is to take effect Sept. 4, will affect about 30 of the 400 volunteer firefighters, Larabie says.
“It had to be resolved,” says Cole. “It doesn’t make sense for the same people to do the same job for the same management for different pay.”
“I’m sure Bill Cole looks forward to the demise of the volunteer firefighter,” says Carrier. “More members means more power for him.”
Moving to an all-professional service would also mean less of a headache for Larabie, one-time president of the Gloucester firefighters’ union.
Nobody knows how much such a change would cost. There are so many volunteer so as to be certain that enough will show up to any given fire — the conversion ratio wouldn’t necessarily be one professional for each volunteer. But it could easily increase the department’s salary budget by $10 million or more.
Arnold says the transition board’s declining-budget projections will be met.
“As we replace older firefighters with younger recruits, the overall salary budget will decline,” she says. “And there are efficiencies we’ll be gaining. For example, replacing several chiefs with just one, and that’s replicated all down the line in management.”
An outside consulting firm’s risk-analysis report on the fire service is due in February.
“We’ll be looking at the city and assessing the types and levels of service we have now,” Larabie says. “It’ll report on the risks there are and on our ability to respond to them… After that, we’ll have a better idea where the department has to go.”