Research reveals struggles for Wisconsin fire departments

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) --- Half of Wisconsin's fire chiefs say they're struggling with a rise in service calls, recruitment challenges, and budget shortfalls. That's according to new research from the Whitburn Center for Governance and Policy Research at UW-Oshkosh.

Researchers surveyed nearly 200 fire chiefs across the state. More than 10% of Wisconsin's fire departments reported that in the last year, they've had at least one service call they couldn't respond to due to lack of resources.

"A lot of concern about budgeting and funding shortfalls with over 80% of fire chiefs telling us that they did not have the capacity to operate with their current budget for the next year," said Michael Ford, Whitburn Center director.

Ford says firefighting isn't just about battling flames. Firefighters also respond to other emergency calls for help.

The survey found that some of the biggest concerns facing departments include a rise in service calls, staffing shortages for full-time and volunteer firefighters, and budgets that don't support the needs of the department.

Rural areas struggle the most but even larger departments like Milwaukee Fire have dealt with the same issues. Ford says the data sheds light towards some potential solutions, like consolidating resources.

"Milwaukee is an example of a place where the solution we propose…could work really well because anytime we have multiple jurisdictions that are already having to coordinate with one another and do joint responses, if we could actually consolidate them into common district, with a common funding source – common governance -- structure, we could really start to get those economies of scale and really start to improve response times," he said.

Combining fire departments in that way would require a change in state law but Ford says this could be the key to solving some of these core issues.