Citizens Budget Commission
The State of Municipal Services in the 1990s:
The New York City Fire Department
FOREWORD
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IN 1990
Resources Were Underutilized Resources Were Inefficiently deployed THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IN 1996
Spending Declined Medical Responses Increased Firefighter Activity Only Slightly Efficiency Problems Were Not Solved Response Times Worsened, and Service Quality Is Largely a Mystery The Medical First Responder Program Is Not a Long-Run Solution CONCLUSION
APPENDIX
Founded in 1932, the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) is a nonpartisan,
nonprofit civic organization devoted to influencing constructive
change in the finances and services of New York State and New
York City government. This report was prepared under the auspices
of the CBC's Municipal Services Committee, which I chair. The
other members of the Committee are Harold I. Berliner, Alan M.
Berman, Jeremiah Blitzer, Mark Brossman, Daniel J. Gross, Peter
C. Hein, Jerome E. Hyman, William F. McCarthy, Frank J. McLoughlin,
Frances Milberg, John R. Miller, Philip L. Milstein, Steven M.
Polan, Adam R. Rose, Edward L. Sadowsky, Lee S. Saltzman, Barbara
Z. Shattuck, Ronald G. Weiner, Eileen S. Winterble, and Lawrence
B. Buttenwieser, ex-officio.
The Municipal Services Committee was created in the wake of the
1970s fiscal crisis to monitor and report on the manner in which
City agencies used scarce public resources to produce services.
By 1994 the Committee had supervised the preparation of 39 reviews
of municipal agency performance, covering nine services--the uniformed
agencies (fire, police, correction and sanitation), mass transit,
education, health care, social services, and parks. In January
1993 the CBC released separate reports on each of the uniformed
services; the report on the Fire Department made nine recommendations
to improve the Department's efficiency and effectiveness. These
included purchasing equipment that requires less staff, varying
staffing among firehouses, relocating and consolidating firehouses
in areas of high demand, and assuming most of the duties of the
Police Department's Emergency Services Unit.
This year the CBC began a new series of reports to assess how
municipal agencies fared during an extended period of fiscal retrenchment,
fiscal years 1990 to 1996. The first, on the Department of Correction,
was released in June. Earlier this month the second report, covering
the City's social services agencies, was published. This report
on the Fire Department is third in a series that also will include
the Board of Education, the Police Department and the Sanitation
Department.
This report was written by Dean Michael Mead, Assistant Director
of Research and Matthew H. Lesieur, Research Assistant, under
the direction of Charles Brecher, Executive Vice President and
Director of Research. The report was prepared for publication
by Nicolette Macdonald, Publications Coordinator.
Bud H. Gibbs
August 19, 1997
The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) spent $1.2 billion in
fiscal year 1996 to prevent, extinguish and investigate fires,
and to respond to other emergencies. This expenditure is principally
for the compensation of the FDNY's more than 11,000 uniformed
firefighters and officers. This report examines the FDNY's performance
during fiscal years 1990 to 1996, a period of fiscal stress that
challenged the City's ability to maintain or improve services.
The three major findings of the analysis are:
- There was little improvement in the chronic underutilization of
the FDNY's most valuable resource, its skilled and courageous
firefighters. In fiscal year 1996 the typical engine company spent
19.3 hours per day in the firehouse and just 4.7 hours responding
to emergency calls or conducting inspections; this was a very
modest improvement over the 19.7 hours in the firehouse in fiscal
year 1990.
- The FDNY maintains limited information bearing on the quality
of its services, but the most frequently cited indicator--response
time--shows services worsened. Citywide average response time
lengthened 5 percent from four minutes and 45 seconds to five
minutes over the fiscal years 1990-1996 period.
- The chronic underutilization and declining performance are rooted
in weak management that lacked a vision of a modern fire department
and a strategy for implementing it. There was no progress, and
some steps backwards, in overcoming the major obstacles to better
use of personnel: The "two platoon law," which requires
firehouses be staffed evenly around the clock despite busy and
slow periods each day, remained unchanged; previous collective
bargaining gains allowing more efficient staffing of fire trucks
were voluntarily relinquished by department managers in 1996,
and the ancient configuration of firehouse sites was left virtually
unchanged despite a 100-to-1 variation in the volume of calls
between the busiest and least active sites.
Chronic Underutilization
Although highly valued, the heroic act of a firefighter saving
victims of a burning fire is a rare event. Firefighters actually
respond to relatively few fires each year. Typically, only one
of four emergency responses was a fire, and just one-third of
those were building or "structural" fires. More often,
the FDNY handled non-fire emergencies like a water main or steam
pipe break. Sadly, firefighters responded most frequently to malicious
false alarms.
Emergency responses, especially for fires, declined substantially
during the 1980s. Consequently, firefighters spent little time
outside of the firehouse. In fiscal year 1990 the average engine
company (firefighters responsible for spraying water on a fire
to extinguish it) spent 4.3 hours a day answering emergency calls
and inspecting buildings for potential fire hazards. Fire prevention
and emergency response consumed 4.2 hours of an average ladder
company's day (these firefighters ventilate buildings and perform
search and rescue duties). In other words, firefighters spent
an average of more than 19 hours a day in the firehouse.
Late in fiscal year 1995 the FDNY introduced the Certified First
Responder-Defibrillation (CFR-D) program to compensate for extremely
slow response times by Emergency Medical Service (EMS) ambulances
to life-threatening medical emergencies. CFR-D accounted for 133,000
emergency runs in fiscal year 1996, driving an overall 25 percent
increase in FDNY emergency responses since fiscal year 1990. However,
because of declines in non-structural fires and malicious false
alarms, a substantial reduction in inspections by firefighters
(38 percent), and because no medical assistance was provided by
firefighters in over half of the CFR-D responses, the amount of
time engine companies spent on emergency and preventive duty increased
only 8 percent to 4.7 hours a day. Because ladder companies were
not yet performing medical runs, they were 3 percent less active
in 1996 than in 1990.
Response times slowed in all five boroughs between fiscal years
1990 and 1996. The increases were particularly bad in 1996an increase
of 36 seconds in Brooklyn, 19 seconds in the Bronx and Queens,
and 10 seconds in Manhattan (Staten Island declined by one second).
The City attributes the increases to the record snowfall in the
winter of 1996. However, response times continued to increase
in July through October 1996, when there was no snow.
A more positive sign is that the civilian death rate from fires
declined significantly. Other than these two indicators, however,
practically no useful information on the quality and effectiveness
of FDNY services is available. New York City trails other major
municipalities in the sophistication of its performance reporting
on the Fire Department.
Weak Management
The FDNY's senior management failed to design a strategy for modernizing
the agency and made no progress in removing long-standing obstacles
to greater effectiveness. No long-term plan has been developed
to replace the current antiquated network of firehouses, and hence
the current plan for EMS facilities is not part of more comprehensive
planning for combined emergency services. No effort has been made
to vary staffing to reflect the predictable temporal variations
in the volume of emergency calls.
Managers also took steps backwards and reduced efficiency. In
January 1996 the FDNY restored a fifth firefighter to 60 engine
companies. Three months later, the City granted the firefighters
39 hours of additional vacation time in a new labor contract.
In addition, the department became more top heavy--the ratio of
firefighters to supervisors fell 5 percent to four-to-one.
A modernized FDNY will require aggressive and far-sighted management.
The serious problems facing the department remain unaddressed.
This report identifies five such pressing matters.
- The ultimate objective of the FDNY should not be only fighting
fires successfully, but the eradication of the conditions that
lead to fires. Prevention is a much more effective and rational
approach than waiting in the firehouse for a call. Such a shift
would require a sea-change in the culture of the department.
- In the long run, firehouses and ambulances should be relocated
to modern facilities placed in areas of high demand. More
than half of the firehouses are over 75-years old, and are no
longer situated where they are most needed. Ambulance response
times are unacceptably slow in large part because they are not
efficiently sited throughout the city.
- Future collective bargaining agreements should be used to implement
a substantial restructuring of the FDNY. Recent agreements
served to perpetuate the status quo and reduce efficiency. Future
pay increases ought to be tied to a shift in departmental emphasis
from fighting fires to preventing fires.
- Fire services cannot be provided efficiently until structural
impediments like the two platoon law are removed. Until then,
the FDNY may under-serve some areas of the city during parts of
the day, while devoting excessive resources to many other places
for much of every day.
- Despite already large reductions, malicious false alarms can
be reduced even further using strategies patterned after the Police
Department's computer mapping of high crime areas. Coupled
with other measures, fewer false alarms would mean faster responses
to real emergencies.
A firefighter in full protective gear rushes from a burning apartment
building, cradling in his arms a child courageously rescued from
the fire. This common image of the heroic firefighter is duly
earned; the uniformed employees of New York City's Fire Department
(FDNY) are aptly known as "New York's Bravest." Ironically,
though, fighting building fires is one of the least frequent activities
of firefighters in New York and elsewhere.
In a typical year, building or "structural" fires account
for just one-third of all fires extinguished by the FDNY. Furthermore,
fires of all kinds generally represent just one-fourth of all
emergency responses. Firefighters more often respond to non-fire
emergencies like broken water mains and persons trapped in cars.
The most frequent type of response is a false alarm.
In addition to responding to emergencies, the FDNY seeks to prevent
fires by inspecting buildings and participating in educational
activities. Investigations of fires are conducted by the FDNY
for a variety of reasons, including suspicion of arson, deaths,
and injury to on-duty FDNY personnel. The department also inspects
and regulates a variety of facilities and equipment related to
potentially dangerous activities.1
This report assesses the FDNY's emergency response and fire prevention
services during fiscal years 1990-1996, a period of fiscal austerity
in which municipal managers were challenged to protect and improve
services despite declining resources. The remainder of this report
is divided into three parts. The first examines the state of the
FDNY in fiscal year 1990, highlighting the major issues affecting
its operations. The second section assesses changes in the performance
of the department between 1990 and 1996, focusing on the issues
identified in the first section. A final section summarizes the
findings of the report.
The FDNY spent $1,183 million in fiscal year 1990.2 The lion's
share (94 percent) of these costs were related to compensating
employees. The FDNY employed 12,916 persons monthly on average
in 1990, of whom 11,692 were uniformed firefighters and their
supervisors and 1,224 were civilians. These financial and human
resources were utilized to provide services principally by staffing
217 firehouses throughout the city. The firehouses were home to
210 engine companies (responsible for pumping water onto a fire
to extinguish it) and 142 ladder companies (which ventilate fires
and, when necessary, perform searches and rescues), as well as
several specialized units.
The FDNY's performance was hampered by two general problems. First,
long-run declines in the number of fires and non-fire emergencies
(and, thus, the demand for the FDNY's services), combined with
entrenched work practices, resulted in underutilization of the
department's resources. Second, restrictive work rules and the
irrational pattern of firehouse location caused the FDNY's personnel
to be inefficiently deployed.
In fiscal year 1990 the FDNY's engine and ladder companies responded
to 354,508 emergency calls. Relatively few were for fires in buildings-30,577
or less than 9 percent. (See Figure 1.) Another 65,039 or 18 percent
of emergency responses were to non-structural fires, like burning
automobiles and trash cans. There were more responses to non-fire
emergencies than to all fires combined, nearly 117,000 or one-third
of the responses in 1990. This figure included about 23,500 instances
in which private fire and security systems were accidentally set
off. The largest number of responses, however, were not to true
emergencies; "malicious false alarms" (MFAs) produced
two of every five responses or almost 142,000 runs. Unlike accidental
alarms, MFAs are deliberate criminal acts.
While the total number of responses is larger, they are spread
over 365 days and divided among 352 fire companies. When viewed
from the perspective of a typical fire company on an average day,
the underutilization of human resources becomes clear. In 1990
the average engine company responded to 7.6 emergency calls per
day: Slightly more than one structural and one non-structural
fire; 2.3 non-fire emergencies; and, three MFAs. The average ladder
company responded to 8.6 emergencies daily-less than 1.2 structural
fires, 1.1 non-structural fires, 2.9 non-fire emergencies, and
3.5 MFAs.3
The implication of these figures is that firefighters spent little
time responding to emergencies. For an average engine company
on a typical day, only 1.9 hours out of 24 were spent at the scene
of emergencies. Including travel time, engine companies were out
of the firehouse responding to emergencies for just three hours.4
The figures for ladder companies are similar-2.1 hours on-scene,
and 3.5 hours including travel.
What do firefighters do most of each day? In addition to fighting
fires, they take part in fire prevention activities, in particular
inspecting buildings for fire hazards. The benefits of building
inspections are dual: They ferret out potential hazards before
they cause a fire, and they familiarize firefighters with the
buildings in their neighborhoods in case a fire should occur.
In 1990 fire companies conducted 81,000 inspections, or an average
of slightly more than 0.6 per company per day.5
No data are available on the time required to conduct a fire inspection,
but if each inspection lasted an average of two hours, then a
daily average of approximately 4.3 hours for engine companies
and 4.7 hours for ladder companies were devoted to fire prevention
and extinguishment duties. Stated differently, more than 19 hours
of every day were spent in the firehouse. Although some of that
time was used for cleaning and maintaining firefighting equipment
and required paperwork, the overwhelming majority of a firefighter's
day was spent in the firehouse waiting for fires to be reported.
One cause of this tremendous underutilization of FDNY resources
was a long-run decline in the demand for fire services. Between
1980 and 1990 the number of structural fires declined 29 percent
and other fires fell 13 percent. (See Figure 2.) As a result there
were about 22,000 fewer responses to fires in 1990 than in 1980.
Non-fire emergency responses also fell 13 percent or approximately
10,000.
However, these declines do not explain most of the unused time
in the firehouse. A more significant and enduring factor is the
firehouse culture. Each day is split into two shifts-one for nine
hours from 9 am to 6 pm, and the other for the remaining 15 hours.
Many firefighters engage in "tour-swapping" to work
24 hours straight in consecutive shifts. Thus, firefighters spend
long periods of time living together in the firehouse-shopping
for food, cooking meals, eating, resting and socializing.
Some contend this culture is an essential ingredient in building
the mutual trust necessary for firefighters to place their lives
in the hands of their comrades. However, the negative aspects
outweigh the positive. This firehouse culture glorifies and emphasizes
firefighting to the detriment of other aspects of the job, like
inspections and education efforts. Firefighters resist leaving
the firehouse for reasons other than to fight a fire. Consequently,
as the demand for what firefighters consider to be "real"
work declined, the amount of time spent outside the firehouse
also decreased. The firehouse culture, and the social relations
it fosters, also impeded the diversification of the workforce.
The Department lagged the other uniformed public safety agencies
in achieving diversity. At the end of 1991, 99.7 percent of the
FDNY's uniformed workforce was male and 93 percent white. The
respective figures for the Police Department were 95 and 75 percent,
and for the Correction Department, 61 and 24 percent.6
Resources Were Inefficiently
Deployed
The underutilization of the FDNY's resources was compounded by
an inefficient deployment of staff. Major sources of this inefficiency
were restrictive work rules in collective bargaining agreements
and laws. The two most prominent examples are the "two platoon
law" and "roster staffing."
State law requires that the working day for the FDNY be divided
into two shifts, and that each shift be staffed equally.7 However,
fires and other emergencies do not occur evenly throughout the
day. In calendar year 1990 structural fires and non-fire emergencies
peaked between 5 pm and 7 pm, other fires peaked between 8 pm
and 10 pm, and false alarms were most frequent around 3 pm (when
schools let out).8 Furthermore, the period from 1 am to 11 am was
marked by distinctly less activity: The average number of structural
fires per hour during the hours of 11 am to 1 am was more than
twice as great as during the slow morning period. For all types
of emergencies, there were 2.2 times more responses per hour during
the 11 am to 1 am period than during the 1 am to 11 am period.
Because the two platoon law requires equal staffing at all hours
of the day, the firehouses are highly overstaffed during the slow
period.
Further inefficiency derived from the coincidence of the 6 pm shift change and the peak hours for fires and non-fire emergencies. Firefighters do not leave the scene of an emergency until it is resolved, even if their shift ends; time spent on the scene after the end of the tour is compensated with overtime. Thus, the concurrence of peak activity and the end of the tour resulted in firefighters receiving significant amounts of "post-coverage" overtime, at a cost of about $15 million a year.9
Not only was the FDNY required to staff all firehouses equally
throughout the day, it was mandated to deploy the same number
of firefighters to every fire company. Prior to 1990 the FDNY
was required under its contract with the firefighters to staff
every fire truck with five firefighters. An arbitration decision
allowed the City to reduce to four the number of firefighters
on certain engine trucks beginning in 1990. However, this new
protocol, called roster staffing, also promised 96 hours of overtime
to each firefighter. Roster staffing overtime cost about $24 million
annually.10
Similar to the mismatch of equal around-the-clock staffing to
temporal variations in demand, equal staffing among firehouses
is inefficient because of geographic variations in demand. Although
the daily average number of responses to structural fires was
approximately one per engine company, there was substantial variation
among units. For example, Engine Company 92 in the South Bronx
responded to an average of 1.9 structural fires a day, while Engine
Company 70 on City Island responded to six structural fires per
year.11
Two other efficiency problems plagued the FDNY at the beginning
of the decade. First, contractual stipulations precluded firefighters
from performing building inspections under certain weather conditions
and at certain times of the day. Firefighters could be assigned
to inspect buildings only during the morning, and then only if
the temperature-humidity index was 78 or below or if the wind-chill
factor was 20 or above. Due to an arbitration decision, these
restrictions were removed beginning in fiscal year 1990.
Second, the department's supervisory structure was top-heavy.
At the end of 1990 the FDNY employed 7,876 uniformed firefighters,
with a supervisory staff of 243 Chiefs, one Deputy Chief, seven
Deputy Assistant Chiefs, four Assistant Chiefs, 347 Captains and
1,255 Lieutenants. This created a staffing ratio of one supervisor
for each 4.2 firefighters.12
Comparing the performance of the FDNY in fiscal year 1996 with
1990 leads to five general conclusions. First, the FDNY employed
fewer people and spent less money. Second, despite the introduction
of a medical first responder program, engine companies were only
slightly more active and ladder companies were less active. Third,
the major efficiency problems remained unresolved. Fourth, emergency
response times were slower. Fifth, while the medical response
program improved services to persons suffering serious medical
emergencies, it is only a first step toward a more complete integration
of municipal emergency services.
The FDNY spent $1,244 million in fiscal year 1996, a 5 percent
increase over fiscal year 1990.13 (See Table 1.) However, adjusted
for inflation total spending decreased 14 percent. More than two-thirds
of the reduction was the result of lower pension contributions
made possible through the improved performance of the pension
funds' investments.
A portion of the remainder of the expenditure decrease came from
a reduction in employment. The monthly average full-time employment
of the FDNY in 1996 was 12,473, a decrease of more than 3 percent.
Uniformed employment declined slightly less than 3 percent, from
11,692 to 11,368, while there were nearly 10 percent or 119 fewer
civilians in 1996 than in 1990. Medical Responses Increased
Firefighter Activity Only Slightly
A significant change during the 1990-1996 period was the use of
firefighters as "first responders" to certain medical
emergencies in advance of Emergency Medical Service ambulances.
Although these medical responses became numerous, firefighters'
total activity increased only slightly because of reductions in
inspections, non-structural fires and false alarms.
The use of firefighting personnel as responders to medical emergencies
was prompted by the unacceptably slow responses of the Emergency
Medical Service's (EMS) ambulances. Whereas FDNY response times
averaged under five minutes, EMS response times to life-threatening
emergencies were a relatively sluggish nine minutes.14 In cases
of cardiac arrest, survival rates diminish markedly if cardio-pulmonary
resuscitation (CPR) is not begun within four minutes and "definitive
care" from trained medical personnel administered within
eight minutes. A study of emergency response to cardiac arrest
in New York City found the time to definitive care was over 12
minutes in 72 percent of cases.15 Further, very few victims received
proper CPR within an acceptable time frame. The study's authors
pointed to these delays as a primary cause of the city's low cardiac
arrest survival rate. The quicker responses of the FDNY and its
slack resources were seized upon by the City as a solution to
these problems.
Although the Certified First Responder-Defibrillation (CFR-D) program began in the spring of 1995, it had been in the works for most of the decade. It was delayed by a combination of budgetary constraints, shortcomings in training procedures, and negotiating difficulties with the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA), the union representing firefighters. A pilot program was begun in 1993 in which firefighters were trained in CPR techniques, enabling them to respond to calls about heart attack and choking victims. After expanding this program citywide, the FDNY began to train firefighters in the more advanced CFR-D program to respond to segments 1-3 emergency calls.16 The program was fully instituted in the engine companies by the end of fiscal year 1997, and training of ladder companies is expected to be completed in fiscal year 1998. The annual number of medical emergency responses by the FDNY is likely to continue to grow significantly beyond 1996 as a result.
The purpose of the CFR-D program is to provide emergency medical
care only until the arrival of an EMS or other medical unit. Upon
the arrival of the EMS, firefighting units are brought back into
service and can answer another call. A complex set of rules determines
when a fire company is available for a first responder call, and
a fire unit responds to a medical emergency only if there are
no other fire units in their area which are already involved in
an emergency run.
Emergency responses increased 25 percent between 1990 and 1996,
from 354,508 to 443,138. (See Table 2.) The increase was entirely
the result of the introduction of CFR-D, which accounted for almost
133,000 runs in 1996.
Excluding CFR-D, emergency responses fell more than 12 percent.
The decline in non-medical emergencies was driven by reductions
of almost one-third in non-structural fires and malicious false
alarms. Non-fire emergencies increased 17 percent, and structural
fires reversed their long-run decline to increase 7 percent.
The decline in non-structural fires continued the long-run trend
described above. The reduction in MFAs since 1992, however, reversed
a trend of annual increases between fiscal years 1986 and 1992
(a total of 36 percent).17 From 1992 to 1996 MFAs declined 40 percent
to under 97,000.18 One explanation of the recent reductions is in
an FDNY program to eliminate public call boxes and the introduction
of a revamped 911 system.
Public call boxes accounted for just 6 percent of all emergency
calls, but they were the source of more than two-thirds of false
alarms.19 To reduce the number of MFAs, the FDNY deactivated one-quarter
of its 16,300 alarm boxes in October 1995. The City Council authorized
the FDNY in May 1996 to reduce the number of alarm boxes to under
10,000, and to replace all pull boxes with voice contact alarms.20
In 1995 the City replaced its old 911 emergency system with the
Enhanced-911 (E-911) system. The E-911 displays for the emergency
operator the caller's telephone number and address. In addition
to speeding the process of determining the location of a fire
or other emergency, this technology can help reduce false alarms
reported via the telephone.
The source of the substantial increase in responses to non-fire
emergencies remains unclear. The growing popularity of private
security systems contributed to increases in accidental alarms
in the late 1980s.21 However, between 1990 and 1994 accidental alarms
held constant around 24,000 (the FDNY could not provide more recent
data). The department attributed the initial surge in 1994 to
more calls for assistance from civilians and water-related incidents
such as broken or leaking water mains.22 No further evidence is
available, though, to explain why non-fire emergencies remained
at this higher level. One other possible explanation is the addition
of CPR responsibilities prior to the start of CFR-D.
Although the addition of medical responses to the FDNY's engine
companies increased the number of emergency runs, it made them
only slightly more active. As mentioned, the 25 percent increase
in emergency responses was the product of adding 133,000 CFR-D
runs. However, half of those responses involved no medical treatment-8,000
were malicious false alarms, and in another 60,000 no medical
assistance was administered.23
Furthermore, firefighters stationed in engine and ladder companies performed one-third fewer inspections in 1996 than 1990. While the total number of inspections conducted by FDNY personnel increased 14 percent during fiscal years 1990-1996, all of this growth occurred among the department's prevention staff. (See Table 3.) Inspections by Bureau of Fire Prevention inspectors rose 36 percent from 168,000 to over 228,000.24
In fiscal year 1996 engine companies spent 4.7 hours outside of
the firehouse performing preventive and emergency services, approximately
8 percent more than in 1990.25 (See Table 4.) The advent of medical
responses and the increase in non-fire emergencies were largely
offset by substantial reductions in fires, false alarms and inspections.
Because ladder companies were not yet providing medical services
in 1996, they spent less than 4.6 hours out of the firehouse,
or 3 percent less time than in 1990.
Efficiency Problems Were
Not Solved
The outstanding inefficiencies in the FDNY's operations in fiscal
year 1990 remained in fiscal year 1996. Additionally, actions
taken by the FDNY during the period further reduced efficiency.
The restrictions on when and where firefighters can be deployed
survived three rounds of collective bargaining in the 1990-1996
period. The FDNY still must staff all companies at all hours with
the same number of firefighters. The only actions improving the
utilization of firefighters took place on January 3, 1991, when
the FDNY closed three underutilized fire companies-engine companies
17 in Lower Manhattan and 294 in Richmond, Queens, and Marine
Company 2 on the West Side of Manhattan. However, the engine company
in Queens was reopened in February 1994.
The inefficient supervisory structure of the department worsened.
At the end of 1996, the FDNY's 8,507 uniformed firefighters were
supervised by 306 Chiefs, 46 Deputy Chiefs, seven Deputy Assistant
Chiefs, one Assistant Chief, 341 Captains, and 1,423 Lieutenants-a
supervisory ratio of four-to-one.26 This represents a 5 percent
efficiency loss from the ratio in 1990.
Despite the elimination of weather and scheduling restrictions
on inspections by firefighters, the number of inspections conducted
by staff at firehouses decreased. These firefighters conducted
an average of 6.4 inspections each in 1996, a 38 percent reduction
from 10.3 in 1990. (Refer to Table 3.)
Two other FDNY initiatives made service delivery less efficient.
First, the FDNY restored a fifth firefighter to 60 engine companies
in January 1996, bringing their total to 71. Even though this
portion of the roster staffing agreement was reversed, the firefighters
were not required to give up or reduce their 96 hours of guaranteed
overtime. The cost of adding the fifth firefighter was estimated
to be $15 million annually.
Second, the collective bargaining agreement reached by the City
and the UFA in April 1996 reduced the amount of time firefighters
are expected to work annually by 39 hours. This represented the
undoing of a union concession previously won by the City.
Response Times Worsened, and Service Quality Is Largely a Mystery
Only limited data are available relating to the quality of Fire
Department services. The FDNY either does not collect or does
not disseminate such information. Of the two indicators available,
one suggests an improvement, while the other reveals significant
deterioration.
An important determinant of the FDNY's ability to save lives and property is the speed with which it responds to emergency calls. Unfortunately, the department's emergency response time worsened: The average time between receiving an emergency call and arriving at the scene lengthened by 15 seconds or 5 percent citywide between 1990 and 1996, from four minutes and 45 seconds to five minutes. (See Table 5.) Among the individual boroughs, the increase ranged from an additional three seconds or 1 percent in Manhattan to a half-minute or 12 percent in Brooklyn.
Response times deteriorated most in 1996, when the citywide average
was 8 percent longer than in 1995. In 1996 it took fire companies
in Brooklyn 36 seconds longer on average to respond to emergencies,
an increase of over 14 percent. Bronx and Queens response times
lengthened by 19 seconds, and Manhattan by 10 seconds; Staten
Island response times were shorter by one second.
The City attributes the increase in response times in 1996 to
the record snowfall that year. However, preliminary 1997 data
do not support that explanation. During the first four months
of fiscal year 1997 (July through October, months which did not
experience snowfall) average response times continued to increase-by
one second in Manhattan, five seconds in Staten Island, and seven
seconds in the Bronx; response times remained the same in Queens
and declined in Brooklyn by 3 seconds.27 Another possible explanation
is the introduction of first responder medical care in 1996. Compared
to fiscal year 1996, the data for the first four months of fiscal
year 1997 reveal that while medical response times shortened,
responses to fires and non-fire emergencies took more time.28
Additional data are necessary to determine if the FDNY's activities
successfully protected property and lives. Although no data are
available to estimate the annual value of property lost to fire,
the FDNY does track the number of deaths due to fire. From 1990
to 1996 civilian deaths per 100,000 residents decreased 46 percent
from 3.7 to 2.0. The figure for 1990, however, is an anomaly-it
includes the 87 victims of the Happy Land Social Club arson fire
on March 25th of that year. The 2.5 deaths per 100,000
in 1991 is more indicative of the trend preceding 1990.29Measured
against the 1991 benchmark, civilian deaths in 1996 were down
21 percent.30
The declining death rate seems especially significant because
it occurred while the number of structural fires increased slightly.
However, while there were more structural fires, there were far
fewer of the most serious fires (those most likely to cause deaths).
The overwhelming majority of fire calls are labeled "1st
alarms," meaning only a limited number of companies need
to respond. More serious fires are called "multiple alarm"
fires because they require the deployment of additional companies.
In 1991 there were 3,498 multiple alarm fires. By calendar year
1995 there were 87 percent fewer such fires (444).31
Besides response times and death rates, no other meaningful data
measuring the quality of the FDNY's services are available. Consequently,
it is difficult to make a comprehensive conclusion about the effectiveness
of its services. Many municipal fire departments collect more
and better data than the FDNY. A recent comparative report on
fire services in 30 municipalities presents a variety of useful
quality measures, almost none of which are reported by the FDNY.32
These measures include:
- one-family residential structure fires per 1,000 one-family residential occupancies;
- commercial structure fires per 1,000 commercial occupancies;
- industrial structure fires per 1,000 industrial occupancies;
- number of structure fires per 1,000 structures;
- percentage of total arson cases cleared by arrest;
- civilian deaths in structure fires per 100,000 population, by type of occupancy;
- civilian deaths per 100 residential structure fires;
- civilian injuries per 100 residential structure fires;
- percent of structure fires confined to room of origin;33
- percent of calls responded to within five minutes;
- number of firefighter injuries per 1,000 firefighters; and,
- number of firefighter injuries per 1,000 incidents.
If the FDNY wishes to inform the public of the quality of its
services, the inclusion of some or all of these indicators in
The Mayor's Management Report would be necessary. Until
the department does so, quality will remain largely a mystery.
The Medical First Responder
Program Is Not a Long-Run Solution
The slow response of the EMS to serious medical emergencies led
to the introduction of the CFR-D program. To the extent that lives
were saved because of the more rapid response of engine companies
to the scene of heart attacks, strokes and other serious conditions,
the medical first responder program improved service quality.
However, the CFR-D initiative is a costly and inefficient solution
to the underlying problem of handling medical emergencies.
The CFR-D program does nothing to speed the EMS' response, and
the EMS remains the principal provider of medical care. Unless
something is done to shorten ambulance response times to an acceptable
level, the FDNY will have to continue the redundant practice of
deploying a fire company in addition to an ambulance crew for
a single incident. Rather than substituting firefighters for paramedics
and emergency medical technicians, CRF-D duplicates effort and
adds to the cost of emergency medical responses.
The CFR-D program should not be a long-run solution. It is more
appropriate as a temporary effort to bridge the gap until steps
can be taken to get EMS ambulances to emergencies more quickly.
The FDNY's absorption of the EMS provides an opportunity to solve
two problems at once. A long-range plan should be developed for
effectively siting both firehouses (so that fire extinguishment
is better matched to the parts of the city where it is most needed)
and ambulances (so that they are better positioned to respond
within acceptable time frames). The CFR-D program should then
be phased out as that plan is implemented.
The Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) believes it is vitally important
for all government agencies to seek continually to improve their
performance by both lowering costs and increasing the quality
of services. Such a process would encompass systematic management
review of how services are provided currently, as well as thorough
consideration of alternative methods of service delivery. This
is especially important in times of fiscal stress such as the
City of New York experienced in the 1990s.
The FDNY's performance during fiscal years 1990-1996 reflects
its lack of strategic management and broad vision. During this
time of fiscal stress, the department spent less money, but not
because of better management. Expenditures declined in large part
because of improving returns on the firefighter pension fund's
investments and a 10 percent reduction in civilian staff. Engine
companies were only slightly more active because the introduction
of medical emergency responses to their responsibilities failed
to compensate fully for fewer fires and false alarms and a substantial
cut in field force inspections; ladder companies actually became
less active during the period. Long-standing inefficiencies remained
due to requirements that the department distribute its resources
evenly among redundant firehouses throughout the day, even though
the demand for services is distinctly uneven. In addition, the
FDNY acted in ways that reduced efficiency by reversing previous
collective bargaining gains. Most broadly, no concerted effort
was made to modify the traditional firehouse culture to accept
a more modern definition of the firefighters' role and the groups
from which they should be recruited.
These findings echo those in the CBC's last review of FDNY operation.34 That report recommended nine ways to improve the FDNY's performance. (See Appendix.) Departmental initiatives since then partly addressed three of the recommendations. First, the FDNY introduced the medical first responder program. Second, one-quarter of the public call boxes were shut off. Third, the department added some educational programs; these programs, however, failed to increase noticeably the use of firefighters' time.
Both the first responder and the call box removal programs are
notable accomplishments. However, neither resulted in a significant
change in the way the FDNY provides its services, nor did they
substantially resolve the department's two most serious problems.
The FDNY will remain an inefficient organization with underutilized
staff unless five issues are addressed.
First, structural impediments to matching fire services to demand
efficiently, like roster staffing and the two platoon law, should
be removed. As long as the department is not free to determine
independently where and when firefighters are best deployed to
meet the city's needs, it cannot provide efficient, high quality
services.
Second, the decline in malicious false alarms should be hastened
by a comprehensive, proactive strategy. Such a plan should be
crafted from careful analysis of the information provided by the
experience thus far with the Enhanced-911 system and the shut-down
of one-quarter of the public call boxes. An appropriate model
is the New York Police Department's use of computer-aided mapping
to identify crime "hot spots," locations which are subsequently
targeted for heightened police activity. Reducing responses to
MFAs will allow firefighters to reach actual emergencies faster,
in addition to cutting down on the injuries and deaths that can
result from false alarms.
Third, plans should be made for the long-run relocation of firehouses
and ambulances to the areas of highest demand. More than half
of the firehouses were built before 1920 (59 were constructed
in the 19th Century). The city is very different now
than it was three-quarters of a century ago, and the geographic
distribution of structural fires and other emergencies is vastly
changed. Many firehouses are no longer situated where the fires
are concentrated. As a consequence, one engine company responds
to over 100 times more structural fires during a year than another.
Planning for more effective siting of firehouses should also encompass
location decisions for ambulances so that they can respond quickly
to medical emergencies.
Fourth, better utilization of the department's human resources
will require a sea-change in the FDNY's attitude and self-image.
The FDNY improperly views its primary responsibility to be extinguishing
fires. A more rational and effective approach would be to focus
on prevention. The ultimate objective of the FDNY should not be
only the successful fighting of fires, but the eradication of
the conditions that lead to fires. Firefighters spend approximately
19 out of 24 hours each day in the firehouse; that unused time
ought to be devoted to building inspections and community education.
If firefighters were one-tenth as productive inspecting buildings
as the FDNY's civilian prevention staff were, then they would
have conducted 1.1 million inspections in 1996. Such a dramatic
addition to the FDNY's preventive efforts would hasten the ongoing
decline in fires and further reduce deaths and property loss.
Finally, future collective bargaining agreements should be instruments
of change in how, when and where fire services are provided in
New York City. The provision of the current contract establishing
a panel to discuss additional pay increases connected with the
addition of medical responses is misguided unless such deliberations
consider the entirety of firefighter activity. Along with the
new CFR-D program, the productivity-pay calculus should encompass
the reduction in fires and other types of responses, the reduction
in inspections performed by firefighters, and the slower response
times to non-medical emergencies. It would be preferable to connect
future pay increase for firefighters to a real restructuring of
the Fire Department and a substantial revision of the duties of
the firefighter to place greater emphasis on fire prevention and
education.
NOTES
1. These include: Facilities for storing pressurized gases, combustible liquids and refrigeration equipment; fire detection and suppression systems; fireworks displays; vehicles for transporting hazardous materials; blasting operations; petroleum pipelines; and, movie and television productions involving explosions.
2. Expenditure figures include City contributions to employee pension funds, spending on employee fringe benefits (like health insurance), and debt service on general obligation bonds issued to finance capital construction. All years are City fiscal years, unless otherwise noted. Fiscal years correspond to the year in which they conclude; for example, fiscal year 1990 began July 1, 1989, and ended June 30, 1990.
3. FDNY protocols dictate that more than one company is dispatched to each emergency (on average, 1.4 engine trucks and 0.9 ladder trucks to non-structural fires, 1.5 engine trucks and 1.3 ladder trucks to non-fire emergencies, and 2.8 engine trucks and 2.0 ladder trucks to structural fires; dispatch data provided by the FDNY). Therefore, the average number of responses per company is not the straightforward calculation of total structural fires divided by 352 companies. Data on the number of runs are from City of New York, Office of Management and Budget, District Resource Statement for the Fire Department, Fiscal and Service Reports for Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991 (NY: OMB, undated).
4. Multiplying the average number of responses by the average time spent "on the scene" at each kind of emergency produces an average of 185 minutes a day. The average time at the scene of a fire was 23 minutes, for non-fire emergencies 19 minutes, and for false alarms 5.4 minutes. Data are from New York City Fire Department, "Number of Responses by Type of Call, Bullet #5," internal document dated February 6, 1996. Average response time in 1990 was 4.75 minutes; travel time was calculated by multiplying the number of responses by 9.5 minutes (4.75 minutes each to and from the scene).
5. City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, The Mayor’s Management Report, Preliminary (NY: MOO, January 30, 1991), p. 96.
6. Data from the New York City Department of Personnel cited in James Lo, The Performance of the New York City Fire Department: Recommendations for Improvement (NY: Citizens Budget Commission, January 1993), p. 9.
7. See Chapter 1, Section 15-112 of the New York Administrative Code. This requirement has also been written into the firefighters’ contract.
8. Data provided by the FDNY.
9. Memorandum from Raymond D. Horton, President, Citizens Budget Commission, to Peter Powers, Deputy Mayor for Operations, City of New York, "Increasing Productivity in the New York City Fire Department: Proposals for Variable Staffing and Controlling Overtime Costs," October 14, 1994, p. 17.
10. Ibid.
11. Data provided by the FDNY for 1991.
12. City of New York, Office of Management and Budget, op. cit., fiscal years 1995-1996 edition.
13. The spending and employment figures do not include the Emergency Medical Service, which was merged with the FDNY in April 1996.
14. City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, op. cit., September 17, 1990, p. 315.
15. Gary Lombardi, E. John Gallagher and Paul Gennis, "Outcome of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in New York City: The Pre-Hospital Arrest Survival Evaluation (PHASE) Study," Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 271, Number 9, March 2, 1994.
16. Segment one responses include cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest and choking. Segment two responses include anaphylactic shock, difficulty breathing, reported drowning, reported jumper, pregnancy with complications, multiple seizures, multiple trauma, unconsciousness and snake bites. Segment three responses include reported amputation, major burns, cardiac condition, electrocution, OB/GYN emergencies, internal bleeding, major injury, imminent births, pedestrian struck, respiratory distress, gun shot wounds and stabbings.
17. City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, op. cit., fiscal years 1986 through 1992 editions.
18. The rapid decline continued in the first four months of fiscal year 1997—compared to the same period in 1996, MFAs were down 33 percent. City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, The Mayor’s Management Report, Volume I: Agency Narratives, Preliminary (NY: MOO, February 1997), p. 18.
19. Data are for 1994. See New York City Fire Department, Planned Removal of Street Alarm Boxes & Notification Alternatives (NY: FDNY, July 21, 1995). There are two types of call boxes—a pull box (whereby a lever is pulled) or a button-activated talk box that requires the person using it to speak to a dispatcher.
20. Subsequently, however, a federal judge put the removal plan on hold because of a lawsuit on behalf of persons with hearing impairments under the Americans with Disabilities Act. See City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, The Mayor’s Management Report, Volume I: Agency Narratives (NY: MOO, September 16, 1996), pp. 20-21.
21. City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, op. cit., February 15, 1990, p. 50, September 17, 1990, p. 70, and January 30, 1991, p. 100.
22. Ibid., September 13, 1994, p. 19.
23. City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, The Mayor’s Management Report, Volume II: Agency and Citywide Indicators (NY: MOO, September 16, 1996), p. 15.
24. Two points about inspections should be noted. First, the number of "inspections performed," as presented in The Mayor’s Management Report, includes inspections that were not completed. See City of New York, Office of the Comptroller, Bureau of Management Audit, Audit Report on the Inspection Efforts of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, 1C94-041 (NY: Office of the Comptroller, June 29, 1995). Second, these figures represent the number of inspections rather than the number of buildings inspected; multiple inspections may occur in a single building. Data provided by the FDNY suggest a ratio of 2.6 inspections per building.
25. The FDNY could not provide data measuring the length of time on the scene for CFR-D responses. However, it is reasonable to estimate that CFR-D responses lasted approximately as long as non-fire emergencies, and that the 68,000 runs during which no medical assistance was rendered were as long as MFAs; those figures were applied to the medical responses when calculating these figures.
26. City of New York, Office of Management and Budget, op. cit., fiscal years 1996-1997 edition.
27. City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, The Mayor’s Management Report, Volume II: Agency and Citywide Indicators (NY: MOO, February 1997), p. 11.
28. Ibid., p. 12.
29. City of New York, Mayor’s Office of Operations, op. cit., fiscal years 1989 through 1996 editions.
30. Although New York City’s death rate declined significantly, it still remains substantially higher than the national average. The death rate of 2.5 per 100,000 in 1995 was 79 percent higher than the national figure of 1.4 for that year. National figures for 1996 are not yet available, but if the national average remained at 1.4, then the drop to 2.0 deaths would still be 44 percent higher. National data provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.
31. Figure for 1991 provided by the FDNY. Figure for 1995 provided by the FDNY, Bureau of Fire Communication.
32. The Urban Institute and the International City/County Management Association, Comparative Performance Measurement: FY 1995 Data Report (Washington, DC: 1997), pp. 5-1 to 5-71. Some of the municipalities are Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City (MO), Los Angeles, Metro-Dade (FL), San Diego and Tucson.
33. Until 1994 the FDNY reported the number of fires spreading to adjoining structures.
34. Lo, op. cit.
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