by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The Peyton administration wants a Fire and Rescue Department that can perform its vital missions faster, better and cheaper. The mayor-elect’s Chief Operating Officer Sam Mousa told a transition team subcommittee Monday to look for ways to improve fire and rescue response with less money, and to recommend leadership personnel willing to sell that message to the troops.
Mousa said the City already directs nearly half of its $750 million budget to the fire and police departments and said fire and rescue should not expect more funding. Last year the City budgeted $94 million for the department. Mousa’s comments echo mayoral directions given to the 13 departments under the transition team’s review: find ways to do more with less.
“That’s always the cry in government; everybody wants more money,” Mousa said. “But, with respect, that’s the easy way out. Times are tough and we’re beyond the point of throwing money at problems. We need to take a better look at how technology and management skills can improve things.”
The City’s fire and rescue budget breaks down to $79,325 spent on salary and resources for each of the department’s 1,185 employees, nearly $4,000 less per capita than Orlando, which spent last year about $83,000 on its 482 fire and rescue personnel. Jacksonville keeps 265 responders on call daily to cover an 840-square-mile area including Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach.
Despite those differences, Mousa said he’s not convinced that the department does all it can with the money it’s allotted. He said more money should go toward identifying and implementing technological improvements, which might return money annually to the department.
In addition to identifying structural and organizational changes that could streamline the department, the subcommittee is charged with recommending personnel for department head and division chief positions including Ray Alfred’s replacement for fire chief. Mousa told the committee to recommend personnel that embrace the more-with-less approach and are willing to endorse it to the department’s rank-and-file.
Last week, rescue chief Larry Osborne, the department’s most senior member, told the same committee that the City needed to bolster the department’s budget or risk losing firefighters to higher paying departments in Orlando and South Florida.
Additionally, Mousa said he considered 11 of the current fire stations substandard, but said they were all being either replaced or refurbished.