East Fork Fire & Paramedic Districts July 2010 Volume 8, Issue 4

From the Chief's Desk ...   Finances Now and in the Future   As everyone should been keenly aware, our country is in a state of economic uncertainty. There is not a day which goes by when you hear or fail to see the harsh realities of the current economic state of our nation. Locally, the picture is the same. Our state is in its worst financial crisis ever. Local governments in every county are feeling economic pain and having to make some very difficult decisions. Public safety, while a top priority, is neither exempt from the impact of a struggling economy and decline in governmental revenues, nor is our special district status. The situation will take some time to change.

Chief's Desk 1 FF Appreciation BBQ 3 & Award Winners Tognoli's Tutelage 4 Leadership Announcement 7 Battalion Chronicles 8 Prevention Perspectives 12 Training and Safety 14

So, where are the East Fork Fire and Paramedic Districts financially? We are at a very critical point right now. The decisions we make today as management and as an organization will truly define our financial status over the next two years at least. This may be a hard dose of reality for many in the organization, but I have always tried to make our financial status as transparent as possible with the members of the organization, the Volunteer Fire Chiefs' Advisory Board and with the Employee's Association. Are we in a situation in which we cannot recover? Absolutely not! Will the solutions and planning require sacrifice? Yes, without a doubt. Will we need to rally around our decisions and actions as an organization, independent of our feelings, i.e. career vs. volunteer? Yes. We will need to make decisions using statistics and performance data, supplemented by equal measures of logic and reason, to determine optimum benefit of the available funding. We need to approach our financial situation with honesty and pragmatism. This task will not be simple, nor short lived, which is why we are looking at a two and maybe three year approach to the problem. We need to take immediate action and develop a plan which will allow us to move past these difficult economic times. Not everyone will agree upon some of the decisions which we will need to make or those which will be handed down by the Board of Directors. We probably have some who remain in denial that the Districts do have a financial challenge ahead and others who truly understand Continued on Page 2

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