EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Consolidation of the Lake County Fire

In cooperation with the

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Consolidation of Lake County Fire Departments Feasibility Study grant project, which was
funded by the State of Ohio Local Government Innovation Fund (LGIF) Program, tests the
feasibility of consolidation of the 14 municipal Fire Departments and the 2 Fire District into a
single (or up to 3) consolidated Fire Districts to improve services at reduced cost. It is also to
explore if a partnership of shared fire department services and equipment will result in
efficiencies that reduce the overall cost while maintaining or improving services.
To implement this study a Research Team with expertise in fire organizations, legal
requirements, financial analysis and local government organization and management was
assembled. To assist the Research Team in this effort, an Advisory Steering Committee was
formed. The Advisory Steering Committee included representatives of the two supporting
entities; the Lake County Mayor and Managers Association and the Lake County Township
Trustees Association as well as two representatives of the Lake County Fire Chiefs. This
Committee met with the Research Team to discuss options, data collection, and evaluate the
proposals for consolidation. They provided valuable insight into the existing workings of the
Lake County fire community.
There were several objectives of the study:
Expand the opportunity for improved level and quality of service provided
Reduce overall costs of service
Identify advantages and disadvantages of creating one or more districts for fire service
Explore expanded shared services and equipment
The following assumptions were made going into the study:
The study gathered various items related to each departments operations, level of service
and response time, no evaluation of each individuals departments effectiveness was
determine.
It was assumed that each community had determined that the current level of service and
its manpower level currently being provided was acceptable
It was assumed that changes to administrative structure would not immediately affect the
level of service each community currently provided.
Station locations were not analyzed but assumed to be appropriate to continue each
communities same level of service.
The data collected was for the base year of 2012. This was the year at the beginning of the study
that the most complete data was available. While changes have occurred since the study began
the analysis is based on the one year of data to maintain consistency among all data sets.
Lake County is located east of the City of Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie. It is the
smallest county in area in the State of Ohio, but ranks 11 th in population. The County is largely
classified as urban but has a distinct rural character in the eastern portion of the County. The

County is divided into 23 political subdivisions including 18 municipalities and villages and 5
townships. The County established in 1840 from portions of Geauga and Cuyahoga Counties was
rural and the home too many nursery and vineyards until the mid-twentieth century when growth
and expansion from adjacent Cuyahoga County resulted in a population boom and the creation of
many of the communities that exist today. As each community was incorporated, it established
the services that its residents and businesses desired within their own boundaries. As a result
today there are 14 individual Fire Departments and 2 Fire Districts serving the County.
Lake County has several sites that are considered high hazard, such as the Perry Nuclear Power
plant, and numerous chemical production facilities. Additionally, there are natural conditions
that affect the communities. There are two major rivers that run north/south through the county,
both of which have experienced significant flooding and threatened lives and property. There
are steep cliffs and deep ravines as well as 30 miles of Lake Erie shore line that present potential
dangerous situations.
Since there are only 16 Fire entities yet 23 political subdivision, there are several departments
that provide service to more than just one community which indicates that collaborative effort
already exist in the delivery of Fire and EMS service in Lake County.
In 2012, Lake County Fire Departments responded to 37,283 requests for Fire, EMS and Other
service calls. All Departments provide Fire and EMS/Advanced Life Support services to their
jurisdictions. The primary requests for service in 2012 were for EMS. EMS represents 21,448
request or 57.5% of the activity in 2012. Fire call requests were 4,468 or 12% of all the
departmental activity. The level of EMS activity has had an impact on how departments man
their stations and focused the departments on providing high quality EMS service and response
while continuing to provide Fire safety response.
There are a total of 719 Fire & EMS personnel distributed throughout Lake County, Ohio, with a
ratio of 296 Full-time personnel to 423 Part-time personnel. Many of the Part-time personnel
work for multiple departments to generate full-time income. Part-time personnel are also a
source of potential full-time applicants when a position is available. Except for the City of
Willowick where all staff are part-time except the Chief, the Village of Grand River and Leroy
Township where all personnel are part-time and Eastlake where all staff are full-time, part-time
personnel are used alongside full-time personnel to cost effectively increase manpower. This
format of staffing appears to work well for all the departments using it and has kept personnel
expenditures from dramatically increasing while maintaining a consistent level of service in each
community.
This study has identified an extensive list of Shared Services and collaborative efforts already
occurring in the County between Fire Departments, as well as other agencies, to meet the safety
service demand of the residents and businesses. This extensive network, mostly created through
informal and collaborative effort of the Fire Chiefs, has enabled Fire Departments to provide a
high level and quality of service in a very cost effective manner. These efforts had an important
impact on the outcome of the study.
The total revenue supporting Fire Service in Lake County in 2012 for the 14 Departments and 2

Districts is found in the table below.

REVENUES
Property Taxes ( Fire Related)
Schedule A Inside Millage
Schedule A- Outside Millage
Subtotal

TOTAL
$1,679,309
$14,536,467
$16,215,777

Other
General Fund/Income Tax
Rescue Billing/Charges for Service
Misc.
Subtotal

$22,308,798
$6,789,535
$834,725
$29,933,058

Total Revenue

$46,148,835

The largest percentage of revenue, 48%, supporting fire service delivery in Lake County comes
from the communities general fund and income tax. Outside Millage or voter approved levies
represent the second largest amount at amount at 31%.
Total expenditures on fire service in Lake County in 2012 for the 14 Departments and 2 Districts
is found in the table below. It should also be mentioned that many cities provide support
services such as payroll, purchasing, accounts payable and accounts receivable, and human
resources to the Fire Departments and do not charge these as operational expenses thus
undercounting the actual operational expense of the departments.
EXPENDITURES
Personal Services
Benefits
Contract Services
Operations and Maintenance
Total Budgeted Operational
Expenditures

TOTAL
$29,737,488
$11,002,180
$1,256,244
$3,234,932
$45,230,844

Personnel Services and Benefits represents 90% of the total operational expenditures. Operations
and Maintenance only represents 7.2% of all expenditures. Since expenditures associated with
personnel represented the largest percentage of expenditure, the Team captured the total number
of personnel and promoted officers in each community. One of the objectives was to determine
if the same or greater level of service could be provided at less cost as a result of consolidation it
was determined that the focus of the analysis should be on Personal Services expenditures.

The Research Team evaluated all of the data obtained and the four objectives of the study to
create a model to assess various feasibility options. The evaluation was broken into two parts, the
identification of consolidation scenarios and the evaluation of staffing options for each of those
scenarios. The consolidation scenarios related to a one, two and three district layout which
would provide oversight and service to the communities within that district. The configurations
of the various districts were based on reasonable logistical service territories and in some cases
historic connections. The staffing options focused on the manpower levels needed to the
effectively and efficiently provide an optimal level of service to each District. The Team used
the NFPA survey of career firefighters per 1,000 people by the size of population protected to
create the number of full-time personnel needed, with the results then broken into Low, Median
and High ratio categories. Since one of the key objectives is to improve the level and quality of
service the Research Team determined that creating optimal service levels within each
consolidation scenario would permit a comparison with existing costs.

Cost Comparison by District by Staffing Option

ONE
DISTRICT
TWO
DISTRICTS
West
East
THREE
DISTRICTS
West
Central
East

2012
Personnel
Service
Budget
$29,737,488

Staffing
Option 1

Staffing
Option 2

Staffing
Option 3

Staffing
Option 4

$56,072,517

$45,456,846

$43,007,076

$35,385,569

$18,571,159
$11,166,328

$33,529,253
$22,332,657

$26,592,166
$18,610,547

$24,279,804
$18,362,407

$20,233,170
$14,888,438

$11,583,867
$11,400,753
$6,752,867

$21,114,897
$21,440,223
$13,460,864

$17,302,485
$17,739,232
$11,172,517

$15,249,648
$16,590,649
$11,037,909

$12,903,548
$13,527,760
$8,884,171

These Staffing Options do not address each Districts need for additional support personnel such
as financial and purchasing support, human resources, maintenance personnel or specialized
training or education personnel. Currently many, if not all, of these support services are
provided by the home communitys staff that are often in other departments. Many of these
costs are not currently borne by the Fire Department but are a benefit to the department as a
result of their situation within the community. Therefore, additional expenses will be required
in the resulting district structure to provide for each of these additional support services.
The cost of optimizing the operations regardless of the Staffing Option exceeds the current
budget of expenditures on Fire Service in Lake County. Staff Option 4 is closest to the current
staffing levels in many of the departments in Lake County. Even that Option exceed current
expenditure levels. The optimized Options utilize full-time personnel to fill all the positions.
However, many of the Lake County Departments are using part-time personnel to meet their

desired staffing needs. For example a department will identify a part-time slot in their 24 hour
manning that is filled by a firefighter/paramedic that may only work limited number of hours per
month with that department. The part-time personnel may fill the entire 24 hour shift or split the
hours among two or more persons. These personnel are generally cost 40% of the full-time
personnel. Even assuming a percentage of the proposed full-time positions would be filled in a
similar manner by part-time firefighters, there is not a significant reduction in personnel costs
which would justify consolidation. As indicated above these options looked at only the staffing
costs and does not take into consideration potential other savings or economies of scale in such
items as consolidated purchasing, insurance, training costs, and equipment needs. The reduced
cost saving of these items may offset some of the additional cost of consolidation.
The Lake County Fire Departments are currently operating at an efficient and effective level of
service. They have creatively implemented staffing formats that use part-time personnel to
maintain their communities requested level of service in a cost efficient method. They have also
developed a significant network of formal and informal shared services which permit every
department to meets the safety needs of their communities. It is clear from the data that existing
expenditures are far below the proposed expenditures in all three consolidation scenarios. Each
scenario presented a uniform level of service delivery across the County and would increase the
availability of personnel and equipment to respond to a call. However the increase comes at a
significant cost. The model used an average wage of firefighter in each district. It is reasonable
to assume that existing firefighters will not take a pay cut should a consolidation occur. It is
more likely that all firefighter wages will be elevated to the higher paying positions. So while
the number of Administrative personnel such as a Chief will be reduced, the increased cost of
personnel offset that savings. In addition, the increase in the number of personnel to provide a
uniform level of service delivery also increases the required expenditure. Therefore there does
not appear to be cost savings by consolidation on the scale discussed in this feasibility study.
The Lake County Fire Consolidation Feasibility Study results revealed that county-wide or large
regions for consolidation do not appear to make financial sense. However, that does not mean
there are not further opportunities to assist and support the continued cost effective operations of
the Fire Departments in Lake County. The shared services that currently exist in Lake County
are extensive and have developed through an informal network of the Lake County Fire Chiefs
Association. The Chiefs are committed to meeting the needs of their service territories and have
devised plans and programs to meet their objectives. They are to be commended that such an
extensive network of mutual aid and programs are in place. This level of interdepartmental
cooperation is not generally found in most areas of the State of Ohio or the nation without a
mandate. It is this shared service base that needs to be built upon to continue to cost effectively
provide Fire and EMS service to the residents of Lake County.
The Lake County Mayors and Managers Association and the Lake County Trustees Association
should create an Oversight or Steering Committee to continue the discussions started by this
Study. The Advisory Steering Committee created to assist in this report creation is a good basis
for creating the committee. The Oversight Committee should continue to investigate
mechanisms, cooperative actions and formalizing existing shared programs to support the
continued excellent delivery of Fire and EMS service in Lake County.

Lake County has a high performing and quality fire service delivery system that is exemplified
by their response to the Fairport Harbor gas explosions and fires on morning of January 24,
2011. Fairport Harbor, a Village of 3109 residents in 1.04 square miles, experienced 23 structure
fires and 84 incidents as a result of failures to the gas utility regulators in the Village. The
response and use of the unified command system is an example of how cooperative efforts and
relationships that are part of the Lake County Fire Service each and every day can also be
invaluable at the time of a disaster. Chief James Powers of the City of Wickliffe describes the
response as one built on the relationships and trust at the Chief's level along with automatic aid
and subsequent box alarm system which most likely saved many houses from being destroyed. If
this system had not been in place, the Fairport Harbor Fire Department would have had to call
for help once they arrived on scene. This would have been an overwhelming task to coordinate
the response for 29 departments by looking at a map instead of a prearranged order as developed
through the County's box alarm system. The auto aid and box alarm system saved valuable time
in getting those departments to the scene of these multiple fires.
The relationship that the Chiefs have developed further assisted with the knowledge that those
incoming Chief's thought of Fairport Harbor as their community, assisted Chief Hogya in the
suppression and management efforts. Chief Hogya had stated that he had "complete trust in those
Chiefs running his districts and knew those Chief's would treat his residents well."
Managing large-scale incidents such as this one is not uncommon for Lake County's Fire
Service. At each incident in the county, personnel learn from challenges and work to improve the
overall response of the county while maintaining their own autonomy as their community's fire
service.