And it’s only three weeks until the longest day of the year.

With this strong economic downturn, the municipalities that have been governed by inept and corrupt councils (such as Atlanta and Philadelphia) are flailing helplessly and running out of cash to operate.  They’re the ones who are shutting down enough fire stations to cover a battalion and sending ambulances to the wrong addresses.

Then there are some like San Diego that are just inept and are paralyzed by their budgetary shortcuts that are now calling in the chips.

But a few are being honest with their citizens and employees by addressing the unexpected shortfalls of tax collections and are doing their best to keep things going while they plod through the tough times.  And the better governments are being helped by the employee groups who are willing to make short-term sacrifices in order to keep city services functioning.

One of these is Vancouver, Washington, where the 164-member firefighters Local along with the fire marshal’s office have agreed to forego this year’s 4% cost-of-living raise.  That’s a savings of $700,000, more than enough to save quite a few jobs in the FD.  The Columbian covered the story in detail last month HERE.

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, Missouri, a similar agreement with even more impact was reached with the firefighters.  The Kansas City Star REPORTS:

The agreement with Local 42 of the International Association of Firefighters is effective retroactive to May 1 and extends through April 30, 2012. It calls for all 900 firefighters to accept a wage freeze and work three extra days without pay, allowing the city to avoid firefighter layoffs.

The wage freeze could continue if the city’s revenues remain flat in the second year of the agreement, but wages are supposed to rise to where they would otherwise have been by the third year.  (emphasis added by Firegeezer)

Well, we’ll just have to watch and see how that plays out.  But it looks like everybody is cooperating here with all good intentions.

I don’t have any strong opinion one way or another on the wisdom of negotiating these kinds of settlements.  I suppose that for me it would hinge on the integrity of the city officials as to how much I’d be willing to sacrifice.  In some places like Gary, Indiana, and Vallejo, California, the firefighters are right to resist as much as they can because of their government’s past practices and history of knifing the fire departments.  But on the surface, and from what little I know about it, I admire the parties in Kansas City for what looks like a truly mutual attempt to get through the problem.

Now let’s try to get through this equipment check to start the day.  I will take care of the coffee pot.

If you want to see somebody literally tearing his hair out, all you have to do is slip over to Cincinnati and check out the city manager’s office.  The non-stop parade of bad-boy firefighters continues this week as still another one makes the headlines for non-fire dept. related activities invoving the law.

Early Wednesday morning a 30-yr.-old FF with the CFD was piloting his motorcycle while juiced up with a socially-unacceptable blood alcohol content.  While aiming the bike down an onramp leading to an Interstate, he drove right into the rear end of a state police cruiser that was positioned to protect a highway work crew doing repairs on the roadway.

Not much more needs to be added.  In fact, the mishap in itself isn’t particularly considered major news.  This sort of stuff happens all the time and the miscreant could very well be a plumber or an accountant.  But since the CFD has been trotting out wayward firefighters at the rate of one every 3 weeks for the past four years now, the news accounts all point out that this poor sap is a Cincinnati firefighter when he’s not out biking.  It doesn’t matter where you are, you are always a representative of your department, paid or volunteer.

Meanwhile, out in Vallejo, California, currently America’s largest city that is in bankruptcy, the city council has effectively fired their city manager who has been slashing city services while trying to work within the budget.  While the current and past city councils are directly responsible for the disastrous financial situation that they’re in, the city manager has been taking a punishing attitude toward the fire department that is excessive compared to the other city agencies.  He has closed 25% of the fire stations and threatened to close more, and laid off 24 firefighters.  He has consistently argued that the police officers and firefighters are overpaid while he’s earning $341,000 annually.  He offered to set an example by taking a 10% pay cut, but he never implemented it.

The ISO has alerted the city that about half of the city’s fire protection area will be downgraded from Class 3 to Class 10  (see Firegeezer report from April 28 HERE).  Police cars that need repairs aren’t getting fixed, instead they are just “parked out back.”  And so it goes.  After notifying the city manager that they were going to fire him, the council has been in “buyout” negotiations with him.  Monday night they voted to send him packing on June 1 with a buyout package of $390,000 in contract settlement.  (complete details HERE.)  Wow.  That would have paid to bring back two firefighters.  The guy really is valuable.

And so is our equipment.  Let’s get it checked out now while I go start the coffee.  We’ll get together later in the day room.