Casey,
This
question is nearly impossible to answer. There are only a few line items
that are solely dedicated to one or the other (listed below). The
remaining 69 line items are mixed with fire, medical and support
functions. We would need to set up separate budget accounts (one for
fire, one for medical, and a general one) to get even get close enough to be
able to answer this accurately.
|
Line Item |
Description |
2008 Amount |
|
40-24 |
FF Clothes |
$45,000 |
|
40-25 |
FF Hose |
$9,000 |
|
42-04 |
Medical Equipment < $5,000 |
$10,800 |
|
42-24 |
Breathing Apparatus |
$45,828 |
|
42-35 |
CPR Program Supplies |
$10,000 |
|
44-01 |
Medical |
$84,500 |
I
can tell you that as far as salary goes, the EMT-I designation adds $1.16 per
hour on average and the MICT designation adds $2.55 per hour on average on top
of the basic firefighter pay category (e.g. a Fire Engineer who is an EMT-I
earns on average $1.16 per hour more than the basic Fire Engineer).
I
can also tell you that 76% of our calls in 2006 were medical calls (6,810 out
of 8,964). If you multiple the 2006 budget ($11,997,412) by 76%, you get
$9,118,033. However, I’m not sure how useful this will be, as some fire
equipment and supplies may cost more than medical equipment and supplies.
Also, personnel are more likely to increase costs because it takes two people
to run a medic unit and four to run a fire truck. Additionally, although
call backs (overtime) to staff medic units are more frequent, fire incidents
may require more staffing at one time (e.g. in one month, we may need to call
back 2 people to staff a medic truck twice but one large-scale fire incident
may require us to call back 8 people).
Another
alternative is to take our total budget and divide it by the number of calls we
get per year. This would average $1,338.40 per call, which would
calculate out to $9,114,504 for medical calls. Again, I’m not sure how
accurately this indicates the true cost of providing medical services.
As
far as how often fire apparatus respond to medical calls, it usually is not
that black and white. Often, when fire apparatus respond, it is only
until a medic unit can get there. For vehicle accidents, both a medic
unit and fire apparatus nearly always respond. And medic units respond to
what are classified as fire calls. In 2006, medic units responded to fire
incidents 591 times while fire apparatus responded to medical calls 2,847
times. This will exceed the actual number of calls per year because of
multiple-unit response. I’ve attached a spreadsheet based on response per
unit.
I
responded in e-mail so I could send you the figures, but please call me if you
have questions or need more detail.
Alicia
From:
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 1:29 PM
To: Alicia Holliday
Subject: question about ambulance service
Alicia,
We are gather information about City/County funding relationships and one of
the questions that came up is what percent of fire medical department resources
are devoted to the medical response side vs. fire. This would include
operating costs as well as staff time, equipment usage, etc. For
instance, how often fire apparatus is used to respond to a medical call.
The goal is to try to answer if our current funding arrangement accurately
reflects what it actually happening.
We are
meeting on Thursday which I know is short notice but I thought I would see if
you have any thoughts on how to approach answering that question.
Could you
call me so we could discuss.
Thanks,
Casey
Budget Manager
785-832-3409