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Las Vegas Fire and Rescue crews respond to a fire at a mobile home near Craig Road and Torrey Pines Drive on March 19, 2012.
By Conor Shine (contact) 
Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012 | 5:26 p.m.
A new report released Tuesday analyzing operations of Las Vegas Fire & Rescue details several recommendations to help the department save on overtime and improve the efficiency of its emergency medical services.
The department’s budget has grown from $77 million to $111 million since 2004 — at an annual rate of about 6 percent, nearly twice the 3.5 percent average annual growth seen by the city’s general fund over that same time period. That rate of growth, City Manager Elizabeth Fretwell, is not sustainable.
The 180-page report, produced by the International City/County Management Association, was commissioned by the city government in July and covers all aspects of the fire department’s operations, including its financials, response times, staffing levels and organizational structure.
The report listed 23 recommendations to improve the efficiency, level of service and financial health of the department.
Eight of those recommendations were described as “priorities” in the report.
They include:
• That the fire department establish a decision-making process for when its ambulances respond to emergency calls that are also being served by the private ambulance service American Medical Response. Currently, ambulances from the Fire Separtment and AMR respond to many emergency calls, resulting in a duplication of effort, the report said.
• The report further suggests the city consider one of two alternative EMS models, one in which the fire department handles all emergency medical services, which would generate between $12 million and $14 million in additional revenue. The other alternative is to discontinue the 21 rescue units currently operated by the city and turn all emergency medical services over to AMR, saving the city $14 million to $18 million annually.
• When negotiating the nonsupervisory collective bargaining agreement, the city should focus on balancing the number of staff granted vacation leave with the amount of staff overtime allowed in an attempt to more efficiently staff the department. The report found the current CBA restricts department management’s ability to cover schedule and unscheduled leave, driving up overtime costs.
• The department should consider a moving away from its current 24-hour staffing model and consider a mixture of 12-hour and 24-hour shifts, the report said. The report found that emergency calls are concentrated in different parts of the day and the current staffing model leaves the department with underutilized capacity.
To complete the report, a team from the ICMA’s Center For Public Safety Management made two site visits to observe the department and interview key staff and combined those findings with raw data on the department’s performance.
The report complimented the department for its state-of-the-art fire and EMS equipment, for being well staffed to handle a variety of different emergencies and for effective planning for future fire station locations.
Fretwell defended the $155,000 the city paid for the study.
“This study is an investment in the city’s future financial health,” Fretwell said. “Given the potential to realize considerable budgetary savings without jeopardy or impact to public safety, we believe the study is well justified. We are confident the recommendations line out a path we can follow to achieve our goal of creating a sustainable fire department budget that still provides excellent public safety.”
Hmmm, it cost me about $900 to go about 3 miles to sunrise. Not sure why since they didn't give me any gold cookies or anything. Why isn't this a big money maker? Why is henderson the best place for a heart attack?
The union will fight every move to make the department more efficient and cost effective because it will impact the dues they collect...which is their top concern.
If you go to the ICMA's website and type Betsy Fretwell in the search you will find that Ms Fretwell is a quite a big player in this organization. It only makes sense that funneling 150k to them makes her that much more influential. I guess to be fair the fireman union should do a study as well? What a sham! Who is running this city?
Well good thing they did a study to tell us this.
How would we have ever known that there were ways to save costs in the fire department?
Any half-wit could easily address this situation, except the clowns that you people keep electing into office. You get the results you deserve people.
Maybe the they can hop over the Metro and offer some suggestions there?
Saving taxpayers money contradicts with the fire departments goal of milking taxpayers. This report is gonna go over like a lead balloon with them.
There is no reason the fire department should be responding to medical calls when there is a private ambulance sevice though. Why the heck do you even call it the fire department when 10% of what they do is fires. At least call it the emergency department and stop treating us taxpayers like idiots.
they made showing up for accidents mandatory so they could "respond" to every fender bender and make themselves busy---instead of sitting around the fire hall all day watching tv.
everyone should go to the state website that shows all the 200K fire staff of do nothings....the wall of shame... amazing... how many fire "chiefs" do we need in one county???? this county seems to think quite a few!!!!! 50% of the top payouts are to fire staff. And how many different fire departments do we need in one town..nlv, henderson, lv---just like all the other top heavy organizations (ccsd, city govrn) no one wants to consolidate and loose their gravy train.
once again this comes down to the negotiation---who is giving all this green when it is totally not needed to get and retain people. FIRE THE NEGOTIATOR and hire someone who will not give away the farm next contract. I suspect a collusion or payoffs with these negotiations--why would someone agree to such an terrible contract for the taxpayers???
Verbatim from the City of Las Vegas press release posted on the City website.
Blah, blah, blah
Can't wait for the union,(who has caused this whole cluster) to bash this to make the union the good guys...
I don't see any posts by the firemen yet. They must still be sleeping and those who are not must be eating. Oh yeah, some of them could be at the gym.
@anti,
Not to mention all the time it takes to figure out how to game the system for overtime, scheduled sick days, and ways to pad the pension.
@stopthe bs: good post and true.