They’ve been an increasing cost and, as a Council, we have to make sure spending is in the best interest of the community.
— Yorkton Mayor, Bob Maloney
The City of Yorkton is once again conducting a review of the fire department.
“In order to ensure that our residents and businesses have the most effective and efficient Fire Protective Services, the City of Yorkton has engaged Dillon Consulting, experts in the sector, to review our current fire services model,” stated a formal release to the media.
While Mayor Bob Maloney said Council is proud of the work Yorkton firefighters do and would not preclude the consultants’ report might come back showing the model is already effective and efficient, he said, given the economic situation, they are looking for efficiencies wherever they can find them.
“The expert report will provide us with a framework for fire services specific to our needs and comparable with like-sized municipalities that also address the financial impacts,” said Maloney.
The mayor cited a confluence of factors including property tax fatigue among rate payers following several years of significant increases; decreasing oil prices that will have negatively impact on revenues, particularly federal gas tax transfers; an increasing infrastructure deficit in need of attention; and arbitration with the firefighters union, which has driven up expenditures at a far greater rate than other city services.
“It puts pressure on us, there’s no question about that,” Maloney said. “They’ve been an increasing cost and, as a Council, we have to make sure spending is in the best interest of the community.”
Whatever the outcome of the review, Maloney asserted there will be no impact on public safety.
“The safety of our residents and businesses is our number one priority and we are committed to ensuring that the services we provide are being utilized in the best manner.”
The union, Yorkton Professional Firefighters Association Local 1527, does not anticipate any cuts coming out of the review.
“I don’t think that’s a concern at all,” said Shawn Frankfurt, secretary of the Local. “It would be ludicrous to have cuts when our call volume is rising and our impact in the community is rising.”
Nevertheless, Frankfurt said they were a little surprised considering there have already been two reviews in the last decade.
“We do have questions about why, but all we can think is they’re trying to do the best for the citizens.”
The City said Dillon will be looking at demand and calls for service, how the City uses fire suppression services, fire service best practices, how like-sized municipalities operate their fire services and options to improve service levels.
“The review will also look at the service delivery options for fire protection services, both within the province and across the country, that include a wide range of operating models including full-time, volunteer, auxiliary and paid on-call firefighters in identifying the most effective and efficient operating model providing the most value to the City of Yorkton,” the press release stated. “In addition, the Fire Protective Services Review will consider the three lines of fire defence, Public Education, Standards and Enforcement and Emergency Response.”
