Community Fire Mitigation and Protection

Part 1: Budget Report

Big Bear City Community Services District offers many services compared to Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District hence the need for significant allocation from the county council. The Big Bear City Community Services District has large administrative expenses due to many stations as compared to Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District. On the hand, the budget of Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District is about half of Big Bear City Community Services District, which shows integration will lead to cost effectiveness operations and not inefficiencies because the unified organization will be manageable.

Part 2: Argument for Consolidation 

Consolidation of fire departments will occur by merging the two fire departments that are Big Bear City Community and Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District in California. As a result; the above budgets will be combined to form one financial pool to provide resources in carrying out operations for the consolidated team. Many of fire units depend heavily on external funding and therefore the shortages of finances can be solved by merging the operations to reduce the adverse impact on operations. Additionally, combining operations creates a team of expertise which is manageable both regarding remuneration and specialized training and their number to be high.

Integrating the two departments will lower double responses to fire scandals in the town. For instance, cases arise when citizens call the two units simultaneously during emergency cases. Consequently, both units dispatch their teams and fire equipment leading to increased expenses to the county and the tax burden on citizens.

According to Kehmna (2015), consolidation will ensure matching of the services called for and the response given to increase efficiency and effectiveness. For example, there are cases which require the attention of emergency services or disasters response and the affected persons call Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District which only responds to fire cases. Therefore with merging, then roles will be harmonized, and citizens will have one service provider to approach during emergencies. In addition, the medical supplies of the county to firefighting departments will be consolidated into one specialized unit to reduce misuse of limited resources. 

It should be noted that purchase and maintenance of fire apparatus are very expensive. Therefore, merging services will mean that less of these vehicles are utilized or respond to emergency cases in the county and hence reducing the wear and tear and replacement expenses. Cost-effectiveness is achieved as the apparatus will be used selectively according to the emergency calls as opposed to independent operations where they are dispatched to each and every call as illustrated by (McGrath, 2007) . 

Since Big Bear City Community Services District offers training on paramedics, firefighters from Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District will be trained skills in paramedics and assigned to a given crew. The training involves basic skills in life supporting. This will prevent overstaffing and deploy a large number of employees to emergency that will require more vehicles. Nevertheless, the salaries expense of the county will be reduced since the trained firefighters will earn the normal salaries but with a premium benefit for paramedic certifications (San Mateo County, 2012) . In fact, deploying a few personnel to the emergency scenes will require the use of small light response automobiles which are efficient and effective regarding costs and service delivery to the citizens. The consequences of absorbing will mean formatting a fast roaming protocol at low cost in meeting the requirements of the responses. 

From this, the consolidations will lead to low cost. The reduced cost will tax cost of citizens’ payers, therefore, reducing the economic burden and improving their standards. This results from reduced operation bases and the number of offices. The personnel employed by the department will reduce to of the merged companies were operating individually and had hired different sets of workers. Examples are customer care providers, auditors, the attorneys, drivers, technicians, and managers as shown by (San Mateo County, 2012) . 

White (2011) notes that, consolidation helps to improve services provided due to collective purchasing of equipment, apparatus, and maintenance. The purchase criteria and requirements are less duplicated since the organization or the department buys the supplies jointly. Jointly provided operation products and tools also lead to the increased geographical coverage where some areas which were not getting the services prior consolidation enjoy the services with efficient access. Absorbing Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District will enable the city council reaches out the inaccessible places due to improved efficiency. In addition, there improved utilization of the resources. There emerges an opportunity to coordinate the services better at a reduced cost (McGrath, 2007) Resources which were previously underutilized in the past because of a shortage of personnel can be effectively utilized with a merger and more staff.

Part 3: Managing the two fire departments

The resulting commanding structure will be based on the consistent delivery of the daily services but with an adjusted skills mix. Besides, meeting the standardized responses will be uniform as protocol and response requirements. However, administration consolidation will happen where the safety functions to the public will be integrated under one executive who will be responsible for offering emergency services (Kehmna, 2015) .

The employees from Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District will be absorbed and a flexible workforce approach will be adopted to ensure organizational and economic effectiveness. This flexible strategy will be in line with the existing contracts of minimum figure of staffs to be given a specific piece of operation apparatus. This flexibility will enable Big Bear City Community Services District to adapt the composition of the counterpart crew assignments, equipment, and the existing response from the citizens in an effective and efficient way. As a result, during high demand for emergency responses, the consolidated will dispatch more fighters whereas fewer personnel will be deployed in low seasons as indicated by White (2011). 

Keeping the staff in the consolidated unit will focus on skill mix during responses within the crew. However, since every staff will tend to specialize in specific areas with firefighters learning on life support paramedic skills, the employees will maintain in a way that reduces mismatch during service demand (San Mateo County, 2012) . Indeed, the merging of Big Bear City Community Services District and Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District will represent a collaboration of emergency medic providers and firefighters in offering more cost effective and better services to the society. Offering the skill mix in serving the community will reduce potential waste of the finances coming from taxpayers, lead in faster response, and efficient rescue missions with efficient rescue mission (McGrath, 2007) . 

Since Big Bear Lake Fire Protection District operates two stations, there will be no need to close them but can be converted to training centers acting as a subsidiary of the resulting integrated organization. This is to ensure that despite consolidation, resources remain diversified more strategically and broadly. On fire handling and inspection, consolidation of the departments will not affect or disrupt the services to the public and also the training, protocols, and equipment is importantly the same throughout the county for emergency response. Additionally, both dispatch communications and stations operations will be merged (White, 2011) .

References

Kehmna, K. R. (2015). FIRE DEPARTMENT SANTA CLARA COUNTY: BUSINESS PLAN. 1-71.

McGrath. (2007). Consolidation of Fire/EMS Services between Cities of Sun Valley and Ketchum Idaho. McGrath Consulting Group, Inc. , 1-57.

San Mateo County. (2012). City Fire Department Consolidations/Mergers. 1-54.

White, K. (2011). “New chief takes the reins at Aptos­La Selva Fire." Santa Cruz Sentinel .