When Is A Fire Department Not A Fire Department?-Travis County ESD 4

I live in Travis County, not the City of Austin.  My fire protection is provided by what the State of Texas calls an Emergency Services District (ESD), a voter approved taxing district to pay for fire service and medical first response.  For the rural areas of Texas the ESD model works OK BUT it does not work as well for those ESD's who exist in a urban/suburban area, especially when the ESD borders a fast growing municipality like the City of Austin.  An ESD is already capped out at a tax rate of 10 cents per $100 of valuation, in contrast a municipal fire department has a tax rate closer to 30 or 40 cents per $100 of valuation.  A big gap which is worsened when the ESD's prime taxing area is gobbled up by municipal annexation.


Take my ESD for example.  At one time, it was the primary rural fire protection district in Travis County.  Its service territory covered roughly 40% of the unincorporated area of the county.  Even though it was a volunteer department and its fleet of fire apparatus was rag-tag it invested in good gear and took pride in always having the latest in life-saving equipment.   On a number of occasions its rescue squad, Squad 1,  responded into the City of Austin because it had more modern, up-to-date rescue tools than the Austin Fire Department.  I know that because in my college days I was a member of the fire departments rescue squad.   But now, many years later, this ESD is just a shell of its former Rural Fire Protection District self.  A large swath of its service area and tax base has been systematically annexed into the City of Austin leaving it with an oddly shaped assortment of geographic islands it supposedly must serve.  It can't and doesn't.

Of its five response areas it responds to only two, the others are serviced at City of Austin taxpayer cost by the Austin Fire Department.  The two areas the ESD still services has one station each, a fire engine with a staff of 3 and a reserve brush truck should the call involve wild fire.  It also has a "Batt Chief" and a fire-fighter driver who operates out of the districts old admin offices in what is called a "quick response" fire-rescue vehicle.  But here's the rub, the west station, is off City Park Road (7 minutes from the entry into my subdivision), the east station, is off 969, a good 25 to 30 minutes away.  And the "quick response" chief unit, is at its administrative / Academy offices, at least 15 minutes away.  So much for quick response.   Total on-duty manpower is 8.  In fire speak, that is just enough staff to manage a car fire, a very small, slow moving grass fire, or dumpster fire.  It is not enough to manage a structure fire in active burning status or a fast moving wild land fire.   In my part of Travis County our biggest fire threat is a fast moving wild land fire and our ESD fire department simply does not have the manpower, the experience or the resources to manage such a threat.   You  need at least 16 on-duty staff, 4 engines, a rescue squad and a Batt Chief,  to manage the garden variety of typical fire calls.  A staff of 8 just does not cut it, especially given how far apart the stations are from one another.

Even worse, the ESD is operating in the RED.  It has several million in financial reserves  to offset its expenses but those will eventually be depleted. 

Hidden behind this limited fire fighting capacity is an additional penalty factor each property owner must pay every year and that is  higher insurance premium.  My penalty is about $750 annually over what I would pay if my fire protection was provided by a better performing fire department like the Austin Fire Department. And that amount is more than I pay in taxes for fire protection!

How does my ESD manage their responsibilities given its extraordinary limitations in staffing and resources?  It calls for mutual aid from other fire departments.  In my area that would be the Austin Fire Department, which just happens to have a station closer to my house than my ESD.  Last year (2010) the Austin Fire Department provided ESD 4 $316,000 worth of free mutual aid services.  Its a band aid approach that banks on the good will of other adjacent fire departments to bail the ESD out of calls it could not otherwise manage on its own.  Its highly disingenuous and from my view, unethical.  Granted all fire departments help each other but its not meant as a get of jail card for those who for all practical purposes should not be in the business at all. 

So this begs the question and returns us to the theme for this post, when is a fire department not a fire department?  

Here's my answer:  a fire department is not a fire department when it consistently cannot manage the basic responsibilities of its mission- timely and effective fire protection and medical first response- without calling in its adjacent fire departments for help. Sorry ESD 4 but you are a fire department in name only.  Yes, you have shiny red trucks and all the accessories the real departments have but when push come to shove, you can't manage your jurisdiction without calling in others (at their expense) for help.  Its time to fold and let others with proven capacity do the job, faster, better and for the same cost.

Along a related theme, when does the ESD Board, the folks appointed to be the representative and advocate for those receiving and paying for the services qualify for replacement?   

When an ESD Board assumes the role of defender of the organization, over its fiduciary duties to lookout for the best interests of the taxpayers it serves, like my ESD, ESD 4.   Travis County Commissioner Karen Huber are you listening?   Your ESD 4 Board believes all that it needs to do for the ESD 4 Titanic is rearrange the deck chairs.  Worse, your voting public, the taxpayers who pay for ESD 4 are considered subservient and secondary to protecting the status quo of the ESD.  A suggestion:  next time you appoint, provide your new appointees with some education on board duties, how ESD's work, and expectations for how they are to be managed responsibly and ethically, along with a written contract between you and each of your appointees that clearly articulates how you expect them to manage the ESD, including best practices (for example: blatant nepotism is a no-no.. a message ESD 4 appears to have not gotten given the fact the Fire Chief has his daughter on the payroll, 5th highest paid staff...hmmm, now how did that happen?) and make sure in this contractual agreement you retain the right to replace them at any time regardless of what the ESD board term specifies. Oh, and another key item, all members of the board should be required to use the ESD email system for ALL ESD related communications.  It makes it easier for us watchdogs to get info using the open records law.