Laserfiche WebLink
Ramsey, Nowthen, St. Francis, Oak Grove, and Bethel, Minnesota <br />Feasibility Study for Shared or Cooperative Fire and Emergency Services <br />responding off the air, or by the use of mutual aid. Unintentional skewing of response is most often <br />found in volunteer fire systems, where dispatch and radio procedures may be imprecisely followed. <br />Further, service demand does not follow a predetermined ratio to land area. As such, the service <br />demand per square mile ratios may produce large variations. <br />Consider: <br />Using a rolling average of alarms over several years can help to suppress the normal tendency for <br />the year-to-year fluctuation of emergencies. Combining the number of emergencies with the <br />number of emergency units and/or personnel required may help to align alarms with actual <br />workload more closely; however, doing so adds to the complexity of documentation. In a similar <br />manner (and if accurate documentation is maintained), the agencies could consider using the total <br />time required on emergencies as an aid to establish the comparative workload represented by each <br />jurisdictional area. <br />Fixed Rate <br />Concept: <br />The use of fixed fees or rates (such as a percentage) to calculate allocation of shared cost is more <br />common between municipalities. Occasionally, fixed-rate contracts involve the exchange of in -kind <br />services. <br />Pro: <br />The concept is simple and straightforward. A menu of service options and the fees corresponding to <br />those alternatives can be developed by the contractor agency. The contracting agencies can tailor a <br />desired level of service based on risk and community expectation by choosing from the various <br />menu items. <br />Con: <br />Partnering communities may change (i.e., population, jobs, commerce, structures, and risk) at <br />divergent rates causing disconnection between the rationale used to establish the fee and the <br />benefit received. A fixed-rate contract may be difficult to coherently link to the services provided <br />and/or received, which can lead to a lack of support by officials and the community. <br />4c <br />E me tgrnry Servires Cnnauiking <br />page 91 <br />