by Mary Wilson
The City of Grandview, along with the Mount Pleasant Fire
Protection District, the South Metro Fire Protection District, the West
Peculiar Fire Protection District and the Western Cass Fire Protection
District, jointly participated in a study with the City of Belton in 2018 to
determine if a potential consolidation of fire services is feasible. Belton,
with joint participation from the other five communities, served as the
coordinating agency for the proposal.
The departments in Cass County initially prompted the
discussion among themselves after years of conversation regarding combining
forces into one fire district. Grandview became a part of those discussions in
early 2018, and Emergency Services Consulting International (ESCI) was engaged
to conduct a study on the feasibility of consolidating the six departments.
The final report was completed in 2019, and on Tuesday,
February 18, Sheldon Gilbert, CEO of ESCI, and John Stouffer, ESCI’s regional
manager who served as the study’s project manager, met with the Grandview Board
of Aldermen to discuss the results and provide a recommendation for city
leadership to take into consideration.
“The main reason you look at regionalized efforts is because
you want to see if there’s opportunity for reduction of redundancy, better
efficiency, and you want to be able to manage your risk,” said Gilbert. “Regionalization doesn’t happen quickly, and
sometimes it doesn’t happen at all.”
Gilbert added that the primary motivation for a potential
consolidation is not to save a substantial amount of money. Rather, the intent
is to improve the quality and effectiveness of providing fire protection,
emergency medical services (EMS), and other emergency services to the
communities. As part of the study, ESCI conducted a detailed historical
financial analysis of each of the fire departments and districts, including
property tax levy rates and revenue, financial forecasts, and transport
analysis.
ESCI presented five options to four of the six districts and
departments (it was determined that Mount Pleasant and Western Cass would be
best suited to maintain operation as they are currently): maintain status quo,
without making any changes to current operation; form an Interlocal Cooperation
Agreement (ICA), which includes administrative, functional and operational
collaboration; create a new fire protection district; consolidate city
departments and fire districts; or expand (annex) a current fire district
boundary.
“Ultimately ESCI recommends annexation by a current fire
protection district,” said Gilbert. “ESCI believes that South Metro FPD is in
the best position for extending its boundaries through annexation of the other
jurisdictions. However, we see this as a ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach to
consolidation. Even in the best-planned collaborative efforts, unforeseen
issues may arise, errors can be made, and alternative paths will be
identified.”
If ESCI’s recommendation is ultimately approved by the four
communities, and not necessarily at the same time, eventually this could mean a
new fire district including the cities of Grandview, Belton, Raymore and
Peculiar. The South Metro name would be changed, and the new district would
take on a new identity. ESCI recommends the district be organized into Life
Safety, Training and Safety, Support Services and Emergency Operations
divisions.
“ESCI is confident that implementation of a consolidated
fire district is both feasible and in the best interest of the respective
communities in the study,” said Gilbert. “If a decision is made to move forward
with consolidation, it will require a considerable amount of planning and
compromise to achieve success. Regionalization is sometimes the right thing,
but it’s never the easy thing.”
The City of Grandview received, as part of the study, a
detailed analysis on the fire department’s best practices, financial standings
and projections, and more, and will work to determine what steps they can begin
taking to ensure that procedures and policies are in place for a successful
department.
“I think that’s something that the Board of Aldermen is
going to want to see first,” said Grandview Mayor Leonard Jones. “We need to
find our low-hanging fruit and tackle those items, and improve upon those,
before we do anything else.”
The report itself has, according to Gilbert, a lot of
information and a lot of moving parts. As far as Grandview is concerned, city
staff will go through the study and make a recommendation to the Board of
Aldermen regarding next steps, which may or may not include regionalization and
consolidation into an agreed-upon fire district.
