Oregon Public Safety Situation

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http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/23/us/oregon-public-safety-shortage

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber is considering legislation that would declare a public safety emergency in some Oregon counties where residents often have been left to try to fend for themselves. The measure would also impose a temporary income tax on residents of counties unable to pay for public safety workers due to budget cuts. "The state has an interest in maintaining a network of public safety throughout Oregon," said Amy Wojcicki, a spokesperson for the governor, in an e-mail statement to CNN. Josephine County, where there is one sheriff and three deputies to serve 80,000 people, would be one of those affected.

[Bnechis 3,961]

Were the budget cuts due to a voter imposed tax cap (measure 5 & 47)?

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That article, for some reason, is really confusiong to me. Can someone dumb it down for me as to what the actual core issues are?

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Basically Oregon voters don't want to pay more taxes for anything, including public saftey. Therefore, public saftey levels, i.e. manpower levels, response times, etc. have fallen to levels where the aren't effective, such as the example in the article. Thereforte, laws makers want to declare a "public saftey emergency", which would allow them to create new taxes in order to create funding for the public saftey services

[Bnechis 3,961]

Basically Oregon voters don't want to pay more taxes for anything, including public saftey. Therefore, public saftey levels, i.e. manpower levels, response times, etc. have fallen to levels where the aren't effective, such as the example in the article. Thereforte, laws makers want to declare a "public saftey emergency", which would allow them to create new taxes in order to create funding for the public saftey services

In other words they placed a mandatory tax cap like NY and as predicted it has hurt services. THe difference is their tax cap cant be broken and in NY most governments have already gone over the cap.

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I am sure I am going to be terribly naive, but here goes anyway.

I have always thought that one of Governments primary functions was to provide for the general well being of its citizenry through some very basic services like education, public works, fire and police. There are enough studies out there as to what constitutes the minimum staffing levels for these functions in relation to the size of the population being serviced.

So on a Statewide basis, compute the cost of providing the basic level of service for each of these necessary functions and dedicate and adjust a portion of the State's sales tax to cover it. Every person in the State or travelling withing the State from outside will be contributing to offset the cost of the basic services necessary to the citizenry as a whole.

Nobody wants to pay more taxes and lately we are seeing just how wasteful our tax money is spent. But it is easy enough to calculate the minumum level of basic service and figure out how to pay for it and spread the cost equitably.

Its great to pay low taxes until you need the cop, the medic or the firefighter yourself and there isn't anybody to show up.

[Bnechis 3,961]

There are enough studies out there as to what constitutes the minimum staffing levels for these functions in relation to the size of the population being serviced.

So on a Statewide basis, compute the cost of providing the basic level of service for each of these necessary functions and dedicate and adjust a portion of the State's sales tax to cover it. Every person in the State or travelling withing the State from outside will be contributing to offset the cost of the basic services necessary to the citizenry as a whole.

Nobody wants to pay more taxes and lately we are seeing just how wasteful our tax money is spent. But it is easy enough to calculate the minumum level of basic service and figure out how to pay for it and spread the cost equitably.

Its great to pay low taxes until you need the cop, the medic or the firefighter yourself and there isn't anybody to show up.

First could you point out any studies based on population?

Minimum staffing is generally based on 3 things;

1) Required number of responders needed to complete a specific mission or missions

2) Response distance (or time)

3) Call volume

If it takes 16 responders to handle a basic fire in an average community, The major difference between one community and the next is what additional missions must be completed at an incident, i.e. High Rise require additional personnel because of vertical response time and tthe need to carry equipment up and victims down.Rural ops require additional personnel to transport water, etc.

Since most standards look at how long it takes to get the required numbers on scene (usually in 4-8 minutes) the minimum staffing must consider how large an area is being covered.

If you cover 1 square mile and can meet the above with 20 members you would not be able to meet it with the same number ofmembers as the area grows (in area and call volume).

It is easy to cover urban areas and many suburban areas, but how do you cover rural areas (like in much of Oregon)? Last week I was working with a responder from a state that has1/2 the population of Westchester County, but is 200 times larger (500sq miles vs. 100,000sq miles). If you used a formula of say 1 responder per 100 population (which is what Westchester claims to have in FF) then the rural state if following the same formula would have 5,000 responders covering 100,000 sq.miles (or 1 responder every 20 sq. miles) imagine Yonkers would only need 1 ff following that formula.

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No. Don't know of any specific studies, I am just assuming that there are industry recommendations regarding minimum staffing and apparatus needed to accommodate area, population and call volume.

Obviously responses of pesonnel and equipment may vary, but my point was meant to be that this it 2013, we waste so much money on frivolities that it shouldn't be so difficult to provide minimum levels of emergency response to all our citizens, if it takes a while to get there because you live in outer Oshkosh, so be it, but there should be a level of confidence in the public that someone will come to their aid, and not be told to call back tomorrow when someon might be on duty.

I remember the old TV movie in the 70's "Pine Canyon is Burning" . Out in the sticks California, Kent McCord (Adam-12) played a fire Captain who was the sole firefighter 27/7 living in a remote station with his family and responding to any calls in his huge response district and backed up by a 'regular' station that was about 20 mile away. It may have taken him a long time to get there, but at least someone was on the way to help when called.

Of course regulations probably prohibit a single person response today. I guess its a matter of priorities and despite all the money thrown around after 911 we still seem to be stifling the basic needs of our emergency people.