Consider this comparison of two cities. Wichita, Kansas is a fairly close city to Oklahoma City. Wichita is the 51st largest city in America with a population of 433,284. Wichita has a 437 member fire department with an approx. budget of $40,000,000.00.

Oklahoma City is the 31st largest city in America. It has a population of 551,789. Oklahoma city has a 929 member fire department. Oklahoma City has a dedicated Public Safety Sales tax that funds approx. 1/3 of the $93,000,000.00 cost of the annual budget. So actually it only costs Oklahoma City $62,000,000.00 out of the General Fund Budget. You have to admit that is quite a bargain, for the amount of manpower.

Why on earth does Oklahoma City so many more firefighters per 1000 population than Wichita? I don't see a bargain here at all.

Not your best argument Mikemarsh51. Using your figures, OKC FD total cost comes to a bit over 100,000 annually per member as an average, while Wichita's total annual cost average comes to a bit over 91,000 per member. There may be many sound reasons for the average working out as it does, but it's hard to tout the higher overall cost per member as a bargain.

Why on earth does Oklahoma City so many more firefighters per 1000 population than Wichita? I don't see a bargain here at all.

Firefighters per 100,000 residents
Wichita: 101
OKC: 169

It looks to me like OKC has an extra 375 firefighters. Getting rid of them would save about $37,540,365.98. OKC leaders - you should look into this. That is some serious savings.

Thanks for pointing this out Mike, I am going to call my councilman this morning and forward this info.

Thanks for pointing this out Mike, I am going to call my councilman this morning and forward this info.

Let them know that the $37 million in saving only comes from the General Fund which is a 60.4% savings. Holy crap - how did the go un-noticed for sooo long? They need to do something about this because I just found the $6 million for LeMans racing AND the $30 million to move the power sub-station. And this is just the saving from 1 year. Next year we would get another $37 million in savings.

Oh they know about the savings already. In 1989 the general fund paid for all 748 firefighters. After 3 were killed the public safety sales tax was passed and the additional 200 were paid for from that. Today, 202 are paid for from the PSST, 675 are paid for from the general fund. 29 were eliminated and 45 are paid for from some type of temporary MAPS3 use tax. And as Patrick Ryan made very clear in June, "That is for one year only". My guess is those 45 jobs most likely are going to be eliminated at the end of this fiscal year.

So, back to the bargain we're getting. Population has increased by %20 since the PSST was passed. The general fund is paying for 75 less Firefighters and it looks like there are plans to clean out 45 more. Man, we are saving some money here. Like I said this is a bargain.

Kerry and okclee, you may be on to something here. You could urge the council to pass a resolution to end the Public Safety Sales tax. That would eliminate approx. $62,000,000.00 in revenue, half of it for PD and half for the FD. You would be able to lay off 1/3 of the fire deptartment ASAP. Thats got to make you happy! You should really work on that. As we all know, we don't need all them. Nothing ever happens around here. By the way Mick slipped the $30,000,000.00 for the substation into MAPS3. It's included in the cost of the new convention center. He said so in the Gazzette.

Kerry and okclee, you may be on to something here. You could urge the council to pass a resolution to end the Public Safety Sales tax. That would eliminate approx. $62,000,000.00 in revenue, half of it for PD and half for the FD. You would be able to lay off 1/3 of the fire deptartment ASAP. Thats got to make you happy! You should really work on that. As we all know, we don't need all them. Nothing ever happens around here. By the way Mick slipped the $30,000,000.00 for the substation into MAPS3. It's included in the cost of the new convention center. He said so in the Gazzette.

I am not for ending the dedicated funding - just getting OKC in line with peer cities on the head count. The saving would then come from the general fund to be used for other things. I guess from your comment that nothing ever happens in Wichita so they don't need as many firefighters per 100,000 residents. Are the firefighters in Wichita aware of your sediments - they might disagree?

OKC by Square Miles 621.2 = 1.5 Firefighters per square mile.
Wichita Kansas by Square Miles 115.1 = 3.8 FireFighters per square mile.

OKC by Square Miles 621.2 = 1.5 Firefighters per square mile.
Wichita Kansas by Square Miles 115.1 = 3.8 FireFighters per square mile.

How is that a valid comparison?

How is that a valid comparison?

Response time comes to mind.

See - I told everyone OKC needs to rein in the city limits via mass de-annexation.

Response time comes to mind.

Apples to oranges.

OKC = 871.5/sq mi.
Wichita = 2,602/sq mi.

Nice try though!

See - I told everyone OKC needs to rein in the city limits via mass de-annexation.
There you go, you've got your first order of business if and when you move back to OKC.

See - I told everyone OKC needs to rein in the city limits via mass de-annexation.

This.

Kerry, I'm not sure what you mean by their sediments. Maybe your saying the are the salt of the earth, I'm not sure. My point was we train for all eventualities, and that takes manpower. Every city in the nation does that.The standard response to Southwest Medical center is 50 -80 firefighters. You seem to be advocating for eliminating public safety. Let whatever happens happen. Then let the city clean up whats left after the embers have cooled. Kind of a big junk clean up for disasters. I guess you want to cut more jobs so we can buy more art. Repave downtown and make it the commerce center of our universe. There is more to OKC than just downtown.

The city fathers will not deannex anything. In case you havent noticed, they don't make more land. Council greed will never let any of that go.

Response time comes to mind.

Gentlemen,

We are wasting our time trying to educate these guys on the importance of properly staffing the police and fire depts. They simply cant grasp what it is that we do for them, which is fine, I dont expect them too. I just go do my job to the best of my ability each and every shift and let the politicians take care of the rest. We know what is bound to happen if we dont address staffing issues. These guys are going to have to go to the school of hard knocks to understand the consequences of understaffed public safety depts. Its just that simple. But once a catatrophe in OKC happens again and it will and cant be address properly due to lack of public safety staffing, then some heads on the horshoe are going to roll, right off of the table and out of the building, never to return. Maybe that is what its going to take to truly make the point, I sure hope not.
So

Metro, what figure is the 2602 sq miles related to?

If you all agreed to work 25 years before collecting retirement, that would probably take care of the staffing issues. Most of the rest of us work 40+ years before being eligible to retire. I think it would be a good idea to do the same with the military. We pay with our taxes for a lot of 40 year olds to collect retirement and work at a second career. My son is one of the ones who will be eligible to retire at 42, but that doesn't make it right.

Consider this comparison of two cities. Wichita, Kansas is a fairly close city to Oklahoma City. Wichita is the 51st largest city in America with a population of 433,284. Wichita has a 437 member fire department with an approx. budget of $40,000,000.00.

Oklahoma City is the 31st largest city in America. It has a population of 551,789. Oklahoma city has a 929 member fire department. Oklahoma City has a dedicated Public Safety Sales tax that funds approx. 1/3 of the $93,000,000.00 cost of the annual budget. So actually it only costs Oklahoma City $62,000,000.00 out of the General Fund Budget. You have to admit that is quite a bargain, for the amount of manpower.

Wichita, KS has 366,046 residents, not 433,284. Let's be careful when posting population figures. Now we have an entire thread full of misinformation.

Most of us work 25 years or more before retiring, probably in the 90-95 percentile range at least. One of the reasons being trying to get our kids through college before retiring.
It would be nice to work 40 years in the fire service, but our bodies wont hold up to the abuse, day in and day out. When I hired on the fire dept. the avg life expectancy of a OKC firefighter was 56.7 yrs, while the rest of the population avg life expectancy was in the 75 yr old range. I have known many guys retire and die 3-5 years after retiring after 25 years on the job. Heck of a deal....

Wichita, KS has 366,046 residents, not 433,284. Let's be careful when posting population figures. Now we have an entire thread full of misinformation.

Are we sure the firefighter head-counts are even correct?

Firefighter head count in OKC is 929 and dropping as we speak due to retirement of 25 yr + guys.

Gentlemen,

We are wasting our time trying to educate these guys on the importance of properly staffing the police and fire depts. They simply cant grasp what it is that we do for them, which is fine, I dont expect them too. I just go do my job to the best of my ability each and every shift and let the politicians take care of the rest. We know what is bound to happen if we dont address staffing issues. These guys are going to have to go to the school of hard knocks to understand the consequences of understaffed public safety depts. Its just that simple. But once a catatrophe in OKC happens again and it will and cant be address properly due to lack of public safety staffing, then some heads on the horshoe are going to roll, right off of the table and out of the building, never to return. Maybe that is what its going to take to truly make the point, I sure hope not.
So

No matter how much money public safety receives, it never seems to be enough. Weird. Maybe we need to look at outsourcing public safety jobs to non-union companies.

So lets cut the staffing and the funding, that will make it all better. Its all about perspective.

Firefighter head count in OKC is 929 and dropping as we speak due to retirement of 25 yr + guys.

Why are they retiring? Don't thy care about public safety? That is a kind of - take my ball and go home - attitude. If firefighters care so much about public safety, shouldn't they be willing to take a pay cut to keep more of their fellow workers on the job?

Apples to oranges.

OKC = 871.5/sq mi.
Wichita = 2,602/sq mi.

Nice try though!
Exactly where did you come up with your numbers? Way off from what I can find.

Apples to oranges.

OKC = 871.5/sq mi.
Wichita = 2,602/sq mi.

Nice try though!

???? That's population density... All that data does is further prove Aron and Wambo's point..

Why are they retiring? Don't thy care about public safety? That is a kind of - take my ball and go home - attitude. If firefighters care so much about public safety, shouldn't they be willing to take a pay cut to keep more of their fellow workers on the job?

ok, by your logic, you must not care about public safety at all.. If you did, you'd be a fire fighter...

Why are they retiring? Don't thy care about public safety? That is a kind of - take my ball and go home - attitude. If firefighters care so much about public safety, shouldn't they be willing to take a pay cut to keep more of their fellow workers on the job?

If they didnt care about public safety, they wouldnt sacrafice holidays, birthdays, relationships, life and limb for 25 + years of their lives for unappreciative, unhappy people such as yourself. They retire with 25 + yrs on because there bodies cannot hold up to the job forever. You act like being a firefighter is an easy job. You would be very suprised to know, how many ex collegiate as well as professional athletes are in the fire service. There is no other business or industry that requires their employees to take pay cuts to hire additional employees. Do you even read some of the garbage that you post? Unbelievable

Kerry arent there any big problems for you to solve where you actually live. Why dont you give then all of your attention.

OKCpulse, my bad, I am often directionally dyslexic, now its starting with the numbers.

Betts, Ive never seen jealousy from you like that last post. Like smoke said, there is wear and tear and risks involved that desk jobs never see.

ok, by your logic, you must not care about public safety at all.. If you did, you'd be a fire fighter...

I don't care about it as much as a firefighter does, but it is far from "not at all".

If they didnt care about public safety, they wouldnt sacrafice holidays, birthdays, relationships, life and limb for 25 + years of their lives for unappreciative, unhappy people such as yourself. They retire with 25 + yrs on because there bodies cannot hold up to the job forever. You act like being a firefighter is an easy job. You would be very suprised to know, how many ex collegiate as well as professional athletes are in the fire service. There is no other business or industry that requires their employees to take pay cuts to hire additional employees. Do you even read some of the garbage that you post? Unbelievable

Cry me a river - you think you are the only one that sacrafices holidays, weekends, birthdays, etc. Grow up.

Kerry arent there any big problems for you to solve where you actually live. Why dont you give then all of your attention.

Put me on ignore. You will never hear another word out of me.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz another Mikemarsh diatribe on the poor firefighters and policemen.

Cry me a river - you think you are the only one that sacrafices holidays, weekends, birthdays, etc. Grow up.

I never said that we were the only ones that sacrifices anything.
"Cry me a river". lol Now that is a grown up response.
Is that the best you can do? Dont disappoint me.
Surely you can do better than that. lol
Its obvious that you are not the grown up in this conversation.
One day when you grow up, we will let you be in charge of something.

I never said that we were the only ones that sacrifices anything.
"Cry me a river". lol Now that is a grown up response.
Is that the best you can do? Dont disappoint me.
Surely you can do better than that. lol
Its obvious that you are not the grown up in this conversation.
One day when you grow up, we will let you be in charge of something.

Umm - you were the one whining.

Exactly where did you come up with your numbers? Way off from what I can find.

Wikipedia. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me to use on an internet message board.

Why is it relevant?

Wichita has nearly twice the firemen per square mile as opposed to OKC. That makes sense. Wichita is also smaller and more densely populated than OKC. Almost by a factor of three.

If we have that many more square miles than Wichita and that much more total population, it'd make sense that we don't have as dense a coverage as Wichita for covering all of the rural square miles of OKC.

The numbers are really irrelevant and don't prove anything. Average response time matters. Ability to provide adequate services matter. Where services are located matters. Those are the things to look at, not amorphous quick and dirty factoids which don't take into account the location of the population, which matters.

Response times to rural OKC should be in line with response times of rural fire departments elsewhere, not in line with response times within the city core. You live in the boonies, you accept the consequences of dealing with the boonies.

Mods, any chance we can get this and any other FD/PD post moved to the "Police/FF Needs" Thread? I don't think it's fair that every time a new post is started about Devon, it is moved to the Devon Tower thread and these repetitive threads are not. It would just make things a lot easier to read and avoid, if necessary.

Ok, so using the corrected population numbers, Wichita has 1 firefighter for every 837.6 people and spends $109.28 per resident for fire protection. Oklahoma City has 1 firefighter for every 593.9 residents and spends $168.54 per resident on fire protection. What’s more the average firefighter costs Oklahoma City $100,108 while Wichita spends $91,533 per firefighters. So, is Wichita understaffed? Not if you go by national numbers, according to the link below there are 1,148,850 firefighters in the US serving 310,000,000 people, or one firefighter per 270.1 residents.

Why does Oklahoma City have more than twice the national average of firefighters?

http://www.nfpa.org/categoryList.asp?categoryID=417&URL=Research/Fire%20reports/Fire%20service%20statistics&cookie_test=1

There is no other business or industry that requires their employees to take pay cuts to hire additional employees. Do you even read some of the garbage that you post? Unbelievable

Municipal fire and police departments are neither businesses nor industries. Given that they subsist on the public trust, and that tax collections may either rise or fall according to changing economic fates, how can there be any sound philosophical argument against potential reductions in pay?

Kerry arent there any big problems for you to solve where you actually live. Why dont you give then all of your attention.

OKCpulse, my bad, I am often directionally dyslexic, now its starting with the numbers.

Betts, Ive never seen jealousy from you like that last post. Like smoke said, there is wear and tear and risks involved that desk jobs never see.

Wear and tear? Marshall, I thought you said that workout sessions were mandatory. You should be in better shape than anyone on this board.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz another Mikemarsh diatribe on the poor firefighters and policemen.

Metro, Marshall is a great ambassador. He actually got you and me to agree on something!

Hey, LG, I gave you the oppertunity on here to find out what kind of shape I'm in. You could of made a couple hundred bucks for a days work. I never heard back from you.

Hey, LG, I gave you the oppertunity on here to find out what kind of shape I'm in. You could of made a couple hundred bucks for a days work. I never heard back from you.

Marshall, I've never doubted your physical prowess. Even I acknowledge that washing trucks is hard work.

LG, I made my last promotion 16 years ago, I dont wash the trucks, clean the toilets or mow the grass. It may not be the best paying job. It does have certain perks, rank does have it's priviledges.

Marshall, I've never doubted your physical prowess. Even I acknowledge that washing trucks is hard work.

LordHeadUpMy, if you consider washing trucks hard work, you just answered alot of questions about yourself. Thanks.

LG, I made my last promotion 16 years ago, I dont wash the trucks, clean the toilets or mow the grass. It may not be the best paying job. It does have certain perks, rank does have it's priviledges.

Marshall, it's always a priviledge to hear from you.

This is pure comedy gold. Funnier than anything on TV. I just picture in my head Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory wearing suspenders and an oversized firefighters hat saying "Bazinga" everytime Mike Marshall posts something on here.

This is pure comedy gold. Funnier than anything on TV. I just picture in my head Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory wearing suspenders and an oversized firefighters hat saying "Bazinga" everytime Mike Marshall posts something on here.

It is hilarious, I do agree with you. I cant believe that people actually risk their lives for other people only to be punchline of their jokes. Man this is good stuff. Makes me feel very appreciated to say the least. lol. Too bad the opinions of these guys in no way shape or form dictates the level of professionalism that public safety employees dedicate to their jobs.

There is no other profession that requires its employees to take pay cuts and benefit cuts to hire additional employees. You are correct we are not a business nor an industry.

FOR THE RECORD:

Oklahoma City: 607.0 square miles
Wichita, KS: 135.8 square miles

Source: city-data.com

By the way, Wikipedia shows Wichita proper at 138.9 square miles. First line under "Geography." What were you looking at Midtowner? Maybe Metro area? Easy mistake and no biggie. The numbers above are correct.

There is no other profession that requires its employees to take pay cuts and benefit cuts to hire additional employees. You are correct we are not a business nor an industry.

Are you sure? I know of many businesses that give up ownership stake to bring in new employees or to pay existing employees.

I guess it isn't just OKC

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Police-March-against-jody-weis-wednesday-in-chicago-102943719.html


The Chicago police officers' union protested Wednesday outside the Chicago Police Department's South Side headquarters against Police Superintendent Jody Weis.

Approximately 250 officers some chanting "Jodi Weis is a coward," marched to protest what its members say is a dangerous manpower shortage, and to show their displeasure with the way their boss has run the department.

There is no other profession that requires its employees to take pay cuts and benefit cuts to hire additional employees. You are correct we are not a business nor an industry.


Are you sure? I know of many businesses that give up ownership stake to bring in new employees or to pay existing employees.
No, most are just getting pay and benefit cuts or just cut from their job entirely. I know many that have had pay cuts (me included) in addition to the ones that got laid off. I will say that 20+ years into the architecture biz that I am making around what most fire fighters make and most firefighters that I knew in OKC had a second income stream because of the nature of the fire fighter schedule leaving some open time to occupy themselves.

We have had our health insurance costs go up (for both the company and the employee) and benefit package cut down some every year. That is a fact of life in the business world now....if you have a job. Our contribution went up $45.00 a pay period and we have a $3,000 deductible now that we didn't have last year and the split is 30/70 instead of a co-pay for in-program doctors and 20/80 for out of program services. That is for my coverage alone, we have no kids and my wife has coverage through her job and they had a similar change in the past year. So our out of pocket costs went up a bunch in the past year....although the good news is we had our pay cut that we took two years ago to stay afloat reinstated.

Most union members (everywhere) squawk if they have to contribute anything towards their own health care, do the fire/police in OKC have to pay any of their insurance premiums? I'm asking because I don't know if that has changed since I moved away.

According to PayScale.com (http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Fire_Fighter/Salary) OKC has the 9th highest pay in the country for fire fighters right behind Austin. The top 7 are all Colorado Springs west and most have a much higher cost of living than OKC, Austin or Colorado Springs.

Bluedogok, We certainly have to pay. My wife and kids are on her plan through the company she works for. On her plan they are on the top teir, for $7.00 less they would have been on the most basic HMO thru my insurance. Heres a nice tidbit of info. The city for no explained reason has offered to pay $1000.00 less for FD employees. Every other city employee will get an additional $1040.00. At the union meeting last night it was explained that we would be seeing a premium increase of 24.9% over last year.

FOR THE RECORD:

Oklahoma City: 607.0 square miles
Wichita, KS: 135.8 square miles

Source: city-data.com

By the way, Wikipedia shows Wichita proper at 138.9 square miles. First line under "Geography." What were you looking at Midtowner? Maybe Metro area? Easy mistake and no biggie. The numbers above are correct.

People per square mile.

There is no other profession that requires its employees to take pay cuts and benefit cuts to hire additional employees. You are correct we are not a business nor an industry.

And how many professions are basically immune from layoffs and cutbacks to benefits?

At the union meeting last night it was explained that we would be seeing a premium increase of 24.9% over last year.

You didn't get home from that Union meeting at 12:03AM this morning did you? Are you the Union rep assigned to OKCTalk?

Mid: I think his point was, how many professions require pay cuts etc to hire more people? My current employer had to let a few people go just over a year ago. We did get hours cut etc in the hopes that more people wouldn't have to be let go. So far, it seems to have worked, but it was to keep existing jobs and not hire more.