Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Opinion: Consolidate Command Of Fire Districts

The Eye welcomes signed opinion pieces. The letter below was written by Dan Penney
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To the editor:
Recently, Mayor Drew and the Board of Education ( BOE) have developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which commits the city legal department to provide legal counsel for the BOE. Such a consolidation of duplicative city services represents significant cost savings that will not only assure that much needed funding can be best dedicated to our teachers and education but also helps taxpayers during these most difficult fiscal times. The Mayor and BOE continue to aggressively pursue other such opportunities. Such esprit de corps is unprecedented and certainly demonstrates what positive outcomes can be achieved when these relationships exist.

Along these lines,similar opportunities exist for the South Fire District (SFD) Board of Fire Commissioners who are presently discussing the vacant position of SFD Fire Chief.

A conservative estimate of annual taxpayer burden for this position is some $175,000 when one considers the annual salary, fringe benefits, dedicated vehicle, travel, private office space and other associated expenses being overseen by the SFD Board of Fire Commissioners to maintain this duplicative management position.

It's time for the SFD Board of Fire Commissioners to work with the city to develop a MOU that would have these services provided by city. Certainly both the city and SFD taxpayers could realize significant tax relief. Additionally, with such a unified command structure these critical emergency response services would be enhanced, in the best interest of public safety.

Dan Penney

3 comments:

Mr. B. said...

How about inclusion on the Westfield district.

Anonymous said...

Great idea! Why not consolidate the whole south fire district with the city though?

Anonymous said...

What are the significant savings for combining legal services between the City and BOE? There was never any detailed analysis, just DD and Nocera saying it, which doesn't make it so.

show me the beef!!!!