Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502220096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Despite relatively high costs to taxpayers, The Roanoke Fire Department is a high-cost operation plagued by a lack of leadership, poor management, worsening morale and obsolete equipment that dates to the days of the horse and buggy, according to a consultant's study commissioned by City Hall.
In the works since early last year, the $69,000 study from Harrisburg, Pa.-based CenPenn Systems and a city project management team was released this month.
The city team found consensus in recommending a merger of fire and rescue services, hiring a new leader with extensive experience in both, and preserving a role for volunteers in emergency medical operations. City Council endorsed those goals last Monday.
But the 92-page report also unveils potentially serious shortcomings in the fire service that have existed for years: Rank-and-file firefighters feel alienated from higher-ups; leaders have "abdicated" major managerial responsibilities, and the city's alarm system is "based on technology of the 1890s."
The consultant found the department lacks any long-range goals and that fire prevention efforts may have lagged, and notes there is no consistent firefighter training or defined career ladder.
It also suggests that, in terms of its size, Roanoke pays more for its Fire Department than many other Virginia localities.
CenPenn President Robert Porter cautioned that the findings shouldn't be construed to mean that fire protection in the city is deficient.
Instead, the report highlights operational issues the department should deal with "downstream" as the merger proceeds, he said.
"If someone asks, 'What kind of fire protection does the city of Roanoke have?' the answer is, 'Quite good,'" Porter said. "I wouldn't want anyone to infer from our findings that we found fire protection in Roanoke to be inadequate."
The city team agrees with some of the consultant's findings, but disputes others.
"Of course, I don't believe everything in that report," said Fire Chief Rawleigh Quarles, who announced in December that he would retire at the end of this month. "Not ... everything they write is necessarily fact. A lot of it they just picked up from various individuals."
For the most part, City Council seemed unaware of the findings. Most members, including Mayor David Bowers, admitted they haven't read it closely.
"The point is, from a practical standpoint, the Fire Department is an excellent department," Bowers said. "It's saved lives; it's served the community."
Asked about the conclusions regarding leadership lapses and haphazard management, the mayor said, "I don't agree with that."
Councilman Jack Parrott, who also said he hadn't read the report closely, said he believes the issues are ones a new fire and EMS chief will address.
"I'm going to say that I'm concerned, but I don't know how concerned I am," Parrott said. "I think [Porter] is good, he's on the ball, and we need to pay attention to what he says."
Porter holds a doctorate in management and has 15 years' experience in consulting with EMS, fire departments and other government agencies.
On the Roanoke project, he worked with four associates. Two have backgrounds in EMS operations and two have extensive fire department experience.
CenPenn spent months observing city fire and EMS operations, conducting focus groups within both departments and aiding the management team's planning strategy.
CenPenn has observed similar problems in fire departments of other cities, Porter said. In general, fire departments have their own cultures, steeped in tradition and slow to change.
The Roanoke Fire Department "is not atypical. There wasn't much that we saw that was rare," he said.
City Manager Bob Herbert said the study will be used as a guidebook to improve both the fire and EMS systems as they are merged.
"If you're going to work on continuously improving any administration, you have to be willing to take a hard, critical look at what your weaknesses are and where you can be improving," Herbert said.
"I guess it's been years since anyone took a hard look at the Fire Department," Vice Mayor John Edwards said.
The CenPenn findings conclude:
A lack of focus and leadership in the fire administration has left the department without long-range goals or direction.
Instead, the listed goals in the department's planning documents most often were aimed at maintaining the status quo instead of initiatives for improvement, according to the study.
Meanwhile, the fire administration has "abdicated" to other city departments important responsibilities such as developing a department minority hiring program and planning fire engine replacement.
Until recently, the 113-year-old department had no systemwide set of standard operating procedures. The report said SOPs "play a vital role in the sound operation of any public safety agency."
"Instead, according to [firefighters] and some district chiefs, what did exist in Roanoke is six different operational units doing things six different ways, according to the six district chiefs who run daily operations," the report states.
The department is divided into two districts. There are three chiefs for each district because firefighters have odd schedules - they work three 24-hour shifts on alternating days and then get four days off before repeating the pattern.
Public Safety Director George "Chip" Snead said he expects leadership issues to be addressed as the merger between the Fire Department and EMS moves forward over the next two years.
"There needs to be real, unified, standard operating procedures and protocols developed for every level of the new department," Snead said. That includes a defined career ladder that will open up promotion opportunities for more people in the department, he added.
Quarles said implementing SOPs was one of his primary accomplishments in his 5 1/2 years as fire chief.
"When I became chief, it was one of the things I said I was going to do. And they are now in place," Quarles said.
The chief emphasized that his pending retirement at the end of this month has nothing to do with the CenPenn findings. The motivation to retire came instead from a recent pension system change and his desire to work as a full-time minister, he said.
Rank-and-file firefighters believe most department higher-ups are unqualified and are more concerned with personal power and self-gain than serving the public.
Porter said camaraderie among firefighters is good, and that firefighters as well as EMS personnel in other localities typically complain about upper-echelon managers.
But "the Roanoke groups are unusual in the degree of alienation, animosity and disdain they express toward administrative personnel. ... They believe that committees formed to assist with decision-making are mostly symbolic, and that their recommendations are rarely implemented," the report notes.
Snead said he doubts firefighter animosity is as deep-rooted as the CenPenn report suggests.
"I think there is some of that feeling. But I'm not in my own mind comfortable with believing that it's any worse than in other urban [fire] departments," Snead said.
Herbert said he believes the coming merger will heal wounds between management and lower echelons that have developed over the years.
The city's firefighting technology is outmoded, and in one instance is 100 years behind the times.
The report says that the manual fire alert used to signal stations is based on 1890s technology. The result is delayed dispatch times, unnecessary systemwide alarms and added fatigue for firefighters.
Under the system, a dispatcher in the city's state-of-the-art 911 emergency center must locate the address of the caller, figure out which fire station is closest, and then manually ring bells in an arcane code. All 14 of the city stations hear the alarms and respond when their station code is sounded.
"This subjects crews to unnecessary alerts at all hours and can be needlessly fatiguing when calls are frequent," the report says.
By contrast, city ambulance crews are notified of emergencies by radio tone alerts that go only to the station being signaled. A computer system automatically selects the station closest to the caller, reducing the time between when a 911 call comes in and crews are dispatched.
Snead said a group of city employees has been working for months toward a tone-alert fire dispatch system, and that start-up funding for one is included in the annual budget. But more funding is needed before the dispatch system is up and running.
More resources should be devoted to fire prevention.
The report cites a 1994 "budget cut" of $5,000 that eliminated the distribution of free smoke detectors to homes in high-fire areas, which often include low-income neighborhoods.
"Though the total fire budget exceeded $10 million, department managers said they were unable to remove the money from any other budget category.
"Yet, in the same year, the department shifted money from education and training ... in order to buy additional turnout gear for firefighters," the study says.
Snead said no money actually was cut from last year's budget, that "it was never in the budget, period." Instead, city hall turned down a Fire Department supplemental budget request to implement the smoke detector program.
The program was started this year after fire officials shifted $4,500 in the budget. It has distributed 250 free detectors so far and has about 500 remaining, Snead said.
Using fiscal 1992 data from the staffing and fire location study, the CenPenn report compares the Roanoke Fire Department to its counterparts in 15 Virginia localities, including Richmond, Portsmouth, Danville, Lynchburg, Alexandria, Hampton, Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
The comparison shows that, on a per-capita basis, Roanoke spends 25 percent more than average fighting fires, the second highest amount in the group surveyed.
Fire services in 1992 cost city taxpayers $91 for each resident, while the average cost in the group was $72. Only Richmond ranked higher, with a firefighting cost of $142 per capita.
by CNB