Public safety is quite a bargain in OKC!

[Mikemarsh51]

Consider this comparison of two cities. Wichita, Kansas is a fairly close city to Oklahoma City. Wichita is the 51st largest city in America with a population of 433,284. Wichita has a 437 member fire department with an approx. budget of $40,000,000.00.

Oklahoma City is the 31st largest city in America. It has a population of 551,789. Oklahoma city has a 929 member fire department. Oklahoma City has a dedicated Public Safety Sales tax that funds approx. 1/3 of the $93,000,000.00 cost of the annual budget. So actually it only costs Oklahoma City $62,000,000.00 out of the General Fund Budget. You have to admit that is quite a bargain, for the amount of manpower.

[Swake2]

Why on earth does Oklahoma City so many more firefighters per 1000 population than Wichita? I don't see a bargain here at all.

[kevinpate]

Not your best argument Mikemarsh51. Using your figures, OKC FD total cost comes to a bit over 100,000 annually per member as an average, while Wichita's total annual cost average comes to a bit over 91,000 per member. There may be many sound reasons for the average working out as it does, but it's hard to tout the higher overall cost per member as a bargain.

[Kerry]

Why on earth does Oklahoma City so many more firefighters per 1000 population than Wichita? I don't see a bargain here at all.

Firefighters per 100,000 residents
Wichita: 101
OKC: 169

It looks to me like OKC has an extra 375 firefighters. Getting rid of them would save about $37,540,365.98. OKC leaders - you should look into this. That is some serious savings.

[okclee]

Thanks for pointing this out Mike, I am going to call my councilman this morning and forward this info.

[Kerry]

Thanks for pointing this out Mike, I am going to call my councilman this morning and forward this info.

Let them know that the $37 million in saving only comes from the General Fund which is a 60.4% savings. Holy crap - how did the go un-noticed for sooo long? They need to do something about this because I just found the $6 million for LeMans racing AND the $30 million to move the power sub-station. And this is just the saving from 1 year. Next year we would get another $37 million in savings.

[Mikemarsh51]

Oh they know about the savings already. In 1989 the general fund paid for all 748 firefighters. After 3 were killed the public safety sales tax was passed and the additional 200 were paid for from that. Today, 202 are paid for from the PSST, 675 are paid for from the general fund. 29 were eliminated and 45 are paid for from some type of temporary MAPS3 use tax. And as Patrick Ryan made very clear in June, "That is for one year only". My guess is those 45 jobs most likely are going to be eliminated at the end of this fiscal year.

So, back to the bargain we're getting. Population has increased by %20 since the PSST was passed. The general fund is paying for 75 less Firefighters and it looks like there are plans to clean out 45 more. Man, we are saving some money here. Like I said this is a bargain.

Kerry and okclee, you may be on to something here. You could urge the council to pass a resolution to end the Public Safety Sales tax. That would eliminate approx. $62,000,000.00 in revenue, half of it for PD and half for the FD. You would be able to lay off 1/3 of the fire deptartment ASAP. Thats got to make you happy! You should really work on that. As we all know, we don't need all them. Nothing ever happens around here. By the way Mick slipped the $30,000,000.00 for the substation into MAPS3. It's included in the cost of the new convention center. He said so in the Gazzette.

[Kerry]

Kerry and okclee, you may be on to something here. You could urge the council to pass a resolution to end the Public Safety Sales tax. That would eliminate approx. $62,000,000.00 in revenue, half of it for PD and half for the FD. You would be able to lay off 1/3 of the fire deptartment ASAP. Thats got to make you happy! You should really work on that. As we all know, we don't need all them. Nothing ever happens around here. By the way Mick slipped the $30,000,000.00 for the substation into MAPS3. It's included in the cost of the new convention center. He said so in the Gazzette.

I am not for ending the dedicated funding - just getting OKC in line with peer cities on the head count. The saving would then come from the general fund to be used for other things. I guess from your comment that nothing ever happens in Wichita so they don't need as many firefighters per 100,000 residents. Are the firefighters in Wichita aware of your sediments - they might disagree?

[ChowRunner]

OKC by Square Miles 621.2 = 1.5 Firefighters per square mile.
Wichita Kansas by Square Miles 115.1 = 3.8 FireFighters per square mile.

[Swake2]

OKC by Square Miles 621.2 = 1.5 Firefighters per square mile.
Wichita Kansas by Square Miles 115.1 = 3.8 FireFighters per square mile.

How is that a valid comparison?

[Wambo36]

How is that a valid comparison?

Response time comes to mind.

[Kerry]

See - I told everyone OKC needs to rein in the city limits via mass de-annexation.

[Midtowner]

Response time comes to mind.

Apples to oranges.

OKC = 871.5/sq mi.
Wichita = 2,602/sq mi.

Nice try though!

[Wambo36]

See - I told everyone OKC needs to rein in the city limits via mass de-annexation.

There you go, you've got your first order of business if and when you move back to OKC.

[OKC Heel]

See - I told everyone OKC needs to rein in the city limits via mass de-annexation.

This.

[Mikemarsh51]

Kerry, I'm not sure what you mean by their sediments. Maybe your saying the are the salt of the earth, I'm not sure. My point was we train for all eventualities, and that takes manpower. Every city in the nation does that.The standard response to Southwest Medical center is 50 -80 firefighters. You seem to be advocating for eliminating public safety. Let whatever happens happen. Then let the city clean up whats left after the embers have cooled. Kind of a big junk clean up for disasters. I guess you want to cut more jobs so we can buy more art. Repave downtown and make it the commerce center of our universe. There is more to OKC than just downtown.

The city fathers will not deannex anything. In case you havent noticed, they don't make more land. Council greed will never let any of that go.

[okcsmokeandfire]

Response time comes to mind.

Gentlemen,

We are wasting our time trying to educate these guys on the importance of properly staffing the police and fire depts. They simply cant grasp what it is that we do for them, which is fine, I dont expect them too. I just go do my job to the best of my ability each and every shift and let the politicians take care of the rest. We know what is bound to happen if we dont address staffing issues. These guys are going to have to go to the school of hard knocks to understand the consequences of understaffed public safety depts. Its just that simple. But once a catatrophe in OKC happens again and it will and cant be address properly due to lack of public safety staffing, then some heads on the horshoe are going to roll, right off of the table and out of the building, never to return. Maybe that is what its going to take to truly make the point, I sure hope not.
So

[Mikemarsh51]

Metro, what figure is the 2602 sq miles related to?

[betts]

If you all agreed to work 25 years before collecting retirement, that would probably take care of the staffing issues. Most of the rest of us work 40+ years before being eligible to retire. I think it would be a good idea to do the same with the military. We pay with our taxes for a lot of 40 year olds to collect retirement and work at a second career. My son is one of the ones who will be eligible to retire at 42, but that doesn't make it right.

[okcpulse]

Consider this comparison of two cities. Wichita, Kansas is a fairly close city to Oklahoma City. Wichita is the 51st largest city in America with a population of 433,284. Wichita has a 437 member fire department with an approx. budget of $40,000,000.00.

Oklahoma City is the 31st largest city in America. It has a population of 551,789. Oklahoma city has a 929 member fire department. Oklahoma City has a dedicated Public Safety Sales tax that funds approx. 1/3 of the $93,000,000.00 cost of the annual budget. So actually it only costs Oklahoma City $62,000,000.00 out of the General Fund Budget. You have to admit that is quite a bargain, for the amount of manpower.

Wichita, KS has 366,046 residents, not 433,284. Let's be careful when posting population figures. Now we have an entire thread full of misinformation.

[okcsmokeandfire]

Most of us work 25 years or more before retiring, probably in the 90-95 percentile range at least. One of the reasons being trying to get our kids through college before retiring.
It would be nice to work 40 years in the fire service, but our bodies wont hold up to the abuse, day in and day out. When I hired on the fire dept. the avg life expectancy of a OKC firefighter was 56.7 yrs, while the rest of the population avg life expectancy was in the 75 yr old range. I have known many guys retire and die 3-5 years after retiring after 25 years on the job. Heck of a deal....

[Kerry]

Wichita, KS has 366,046 residents, not 433,284. Let's be careful when posting population figures. Now we have an entire thread full of misinformation.

Are we sure the firefighter head-counts are even correct?

[okcsmokeandfire]

Firefighter head count in OKC is 929 and dropping as we speak due to retirement of 25 yr + guys.

[Kerry]

Gentlemen,

We are wasting our time trying to educate these guys on the importance of properly staffing the police and fire depts. They simply cant grasp what it is that we do for them, which is fine, I dont expect them too. I just go do my job to the best of my ability each and every shift and let the politicians take care of the rest. We know what is bound to happen if we dont address staffing issues. These guys are going to have to go to the school of hard knocks to understand the consequences of understaffed public safety depts. Its just that simple. But once a catatrophe in OKC happens again and it will and cant be address properly due to lack of public safety staffing, then some heads on the horshoe are going to roll, right off of the table and out of the building, never to return. Maybe that is what its going to take to truly make the point, I sure hope not.
So

No matter how much money public safety receives, it never seems to be enough. Weird. Maybe we need to look at outsourcing public safety jobs to non-union companies.

[okcsmokeandfire]

So lets cut the staffing and the funding, that will make it all better. Its all about perspective.