The City of Piedmont's Fire Department strategy in order to cope with the budget reduction seems to be somewhat successful. In order for the operations budget not to suffer from this budget reduction, the department reduces adjacent expenditures, like uniform allowances, or office supplies.
Other fire departments in the country struggle with a much more difficult situation. The St. Louis Fire Department is threatened by a significant budget cut. The $50 million budget is estimated to be reduced by $3.6 million.
The amount is immense for the department's manager, who is considering several actions that he could take in order for the fire fighters and the people they serve to suffer as less as possible from this budget cut. Therefore, the city firefighters agree to having their salaries reduced, or 30 firefighters will be fired in order to reduce expenditures.
The department is also unlikely to purchase the new trucks that the firefighters need (FireFighting News, 2010). The department's manager has stated that other fire departments in the country are unable to pay their bills.
As mentioned above, the fire departments in the entire country must struggle with budget cuts. But the differences are significant among these departments. The budget reduction of some departments almost equals the entire budget of other departments in areas where budgets are significantly lower on a usual...
Certain fire departments can resolve the situation by reducing the budget in areas that do not affect the operations directly, like office supplies and other such expenses. Other fire departments in the country must fire dozens of firefighters, or to significantly reduce their salaries.
Some of the fire departments managed to maintain their activity at normal standards, even in the case of budget reductions, because they had the possibility to reallocate the money. In other cases, the activity of fire departments was significantly affected by the budget reduction, affecting the departments' employees and the individuals and the companies in the area they serve.
Reference list:
1. Prochazka, M. (2010). Stop James Island Fire Department Budget Cuts. Retrieved August 30, 2010 from http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-james-island-fire-department-budget-cuts/.
2. Fire Department Budget (2010). City of Piedmont. Retrieved August 30, 2010 from http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us/finance/budget/09-10/fire.pdf.
3. St. Louis Fire Department Faces Possible Budget Cut (2010). FireFighting News. Retrieved August 30, 2010 from http://www.firefightingnews.com/article.cfm?articleID=80491.
