US Politics |OT|

[Pemalite]

sundin13 said:

Just a quick fact check, the actual budget of the fire department did not decrease 2%, but instead increased 7%. Basically, the initial budget was 2% lower, however there were several additional funding sources which were approved later or through different avenues than the standard budget ($53 million for pay increases and $58 million for new trucks and additional equipment purchases). Once these purchases are included in the total, we see an increase in budget, not a decrease. There is also another $27 million for patient transportation which is expected to be approved which would increase the budget up to 9% over the past year. 

Did L.A.'s mayor cut the fire department budget? The answer gets tricky - Los Angeles Times

Thanks for that. Good to know.

Keep forgetting that fire departments in the USA have an Ambulance rolled into their fleet as well which adds to capability and costs, we keep our firefighters as firefighting/technical rescue specialists only and Ambulance crews as medical professionals in separate stations and organizations, allows for a higher degree of specialization in their respective fields.

..With the exception of ESO's like myself which can do it all.

But if we read that article there were some staffing cuts which hampered things like "test radio equipment, complete pilot training and carry out brush clearance inspections" - Which are all crucial elements to fire mitigation and management.
Personally brush clearance inspections should be a council issue, which relegates to your national parks/wildland fire service once they get approved permits and plans to do backburns and hazard reductions, urban firefighters don't really have the time to be doing that.

And also in that article they state they had to "scale back operations" but fail to go into any specifics.

I am hoping what happens at the end of this is that a review is performed and a blank check is given to overhaul the entire fire service in that region, but these things tend to go into a decade cycle of boom-bust, where after an incident we get overwhelming support, then it starts to taper off until the next big incident that happens in 5-10 years time.