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Table of contents | Previous chapter Playing with Fire A novel by Scott Lazenby
Chapter 11  hen I got back in the office, one of the first calls was from Simon Garrett.“Just thought you should know. We had to arrest Lenny Fiala on New Year’s Eve.” “Oh no. How come?”  “I guess he had done a little too much partying, and started beating on his wife. Made such a ruckus the neighbors had to call. So we let him cool off in the drunk tank, and then booked him for domestic violence. Course, he claims we’re picking on him and that the town was full of people drinking that night. Says he’s going to get a lawyer on us.”“He always threatens that. Any validity to it?” “Nope. Just letting you know in case you hear about it somewhere else.” “Thanks. Anything else going on?” “Not much. I’ve got a couple of guys out with the flu, but we’re covering. Somebody’s been paying for their holiday shopping spree with stolen checks, but the bozo agreed to give a thumbprint to one of the stores. We’ll have ’em pretty quick.” I took a break at lunchtime to join Will Samuels, the parks director, for a couple of games of racquetball at the downtown health club. He had a few years on me — he and his wife Ruby were already grandparents — but he still beat me most of the time. Between games we leaned on the wall to catch our breath. “So, did you and Mary have a good holiday?” “Yes, but it was too short, as usual. Some friends from Colorado joined us. How about you — how was the trip to Louisiana?” Will and Ruby had spent Christmas in Lafayette with Will’s mother and extended family. “Good, good. Didn’t mind getting out of the rain for a while. We had a nice visit, but I’m not sorry I don’t live there any more. Too much baggage from my youth — civil rights rallies and all that scene. Good seeing the folks, though.” “How are the parks in that part of the country?” “Don’t have as many big trees, but they aren’t bad either. Most of ours look so much newer, which I guess isn’t a surprise, since they are. I hope we’ll be able to keep them up as time goes on.” “Think the budget’s going to make that hard?” Will used the sleeve of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Probably. But we’ll manage. We’re getting pretty good at designing them.” He was right. The grass areas in the parks were all sized so the public works staff could unload a gang mower off the back of a truck and cut the grass in just a few passes. All the tight spots were converted to bark dust and shrubs. One of Will’s proudest moments was when he took the city council and me to a new covered picnic area. He said, “Look up and tell me if you see anything unusual.” It looked like a normal metal-framed shelter to us. “Give up? It doesn’t have any cross bars for birds to sit on and decorate the picnic tables.” They had come up with a roof design that put all the weight on a rectangular frame. Attention to details like that had made it possible to add parks without increasing the maintenance budget, but that could only go on so long. Grass still had to be mowed, trash cans had to be emptied, and no matter how we designed them, restrooms took a beating. We had finally taken the step of locking them up at night, but a group of young miscreants had gotten up on a roof of one of the restrooms and dropped so many rocks down the vent pipe that we had to tear out all the plumbing. “You know Will, I like your optimism. It seems that whenever there’s a budget crisis, the things that really make a positive difference in our lives — parks, recreation, libraries — are the first to go. But you don’t seem to let that bother you too much.” “Thanks. But don’t be deceived. I take all my frustrations out here.” Will served and the ball exploded out of his racquet. I jumped out of the way, and let the back and side walls absorb some of the ball’s fury, then whipped my racquet out to tap the ball into the far corner. Will was going to make me work for every point. • • • The conference table was littered with spreadsheets and printouts. Betty Sue punched some numbers in a calculator.“We’re still off by a hundred thousand.” We had given each department a target to shoot for in preparing their budgets. That meant that we could work on balancing the general fund without waiting for the line item details to come in. We had already mapped out a set of options for cuts in each service area, to give the city council as many choices as possible. But I had to pick among them to present the council with a balanced budget, and the decisions weren’t easy. “Are you sure we’re not forgetting any revenues?” I asked. “Can we squeeze anything more out of business licenses or franchise fees?” “Well, even if we doubled the business license amounts, it would only bring in $30,000.” “Probably isn’t worth getting the businesses all riled up, I suppose.” “And the franchise fees are all at their maximum rates,” Betty Sue said. “The only way to get more money out of them is to overestimate the revenues, ’cause I don’t think we’re being too conservative now.” “Hey, it worked for Ronald Reagan.” “What? Do you mean cooking the estimates? That was before my time, and anyway, we can’t get away with deficit financing.” We stared at the numbers. “How about this,” I said. “Charlene Wolf told me that her city tacks on a five percent city administrative fee on all building permits. Let’s see what that would get us.” “All building fees, even utility hookup fees?” “Yeah, I think so.” “Hold on.” Betty Sue leafed through the revenue pages and wrote a series of numbers on a scratch pad. When she was satisfied that she had them all, she began punching them into her calculator. She had what looked like an engagement ring on her finger. When did that get there? She was guarded about her personal life, but even I should have caught the clues about a relationship that serious. I did some math in my head. If the total building fees for a typical house were $8,000, then five percent would be $400. The builders would squawk, but they would pass it on to the homebuyer, and tack on another $400 for themselves and the Realtors. An extra $800 in the mortgage would come out to less than $80 a year in house payments. That was small compared to the homeowner’s property tax savings from ballot measure 5-47. So it would probably fly. Besides, it would only hit new home buyers, and the existing residents didn’t have much sympathy for them. “Okay, that would bring in around $60,000,” Betty Sue said. “Great. What do you think?” “I think we should go for it.” “All right, put it down.” Maybe the ring was from Lavar Washington in engineering. They had gone out for lunch a couple of times over the last few months. “What about the expenditure side?” I said. “Any frills we can cut out?” “How about the summer concerts in the park?” “Ouch. That’s one of the few things that we do that makes life worth living for.” “You mean you don’t get excited about sewer service or traffic enforcement?” “Exactly. Have I told you my motorcycle story?” “Uh, I don’t think so.” “Well, one summer in college I worked part-time on a crew for a motorcycle racing team. Didn’t pay much, but that didn’t matter then. Anyway, we spent a lot of time getting the bikes as light as possible. We experimented with different alloys for the frame, and even drilled holes in the rotors for the disk brakes. The only area that was allowed to get much weight was the engine — each cylinder had it’s own carburetor, that sort of thing.” Betty Sue gave me a quizzical look. “You wonder where I’m going with this, huh? Well, I think as a society, we have our priorities screwed up. We’re putting all the weight in the brakes, the suspension and the frame — things like police, fire, medicine. Did you know that half of all medical expenses in this country are spent in the last six months of a person’s life?” “Is that true?” “Well, I’m not sure. I think I heard that somewhere. I do know that sixty-six point seven percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.” Betty Sue thought for a second, then laughed. “Including that one, no doubt.” “Yep. But back to my story. We’re obsessed with hygiene, with safety, and it’s sucking away all our resources. We’re so preoccupied with basic services that we don’t set enough aside for the things that actually add to quality of life, like the arts, exploration, spiritual growth — ” “But we seem to put a lot of money into Hollywood and professional sports.” “I said quality of life. See, our motorcycle has huge brakes and a heavy frame and almost no engine, and it can hardly move. And if we could turn our priorities around, and get people living more fulfilling, healthy lives, I have to believe we would need less of the so-called basics, like police and medicine. I would choose an Alfa Romeo over a Volvo any day — it may not be built like a tank, but it can maneuver me out of tight spots.” “So why do you drive a sport utility?” “Mary made me get it.” “Sure, blame it on her.” “Well, here you are, wanting to take away my summer concerts.” She rested her head on her hand and was quiet for a few moments. “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Maybe the Chamber can round up sponsors for the concerts, or maybe we can charge an entrance fee.” “You could be right, but it seems like admitting defeat to me.” I looked through our option list one more time. “Is that a new ring?” I asked. Was she blushing? “Yes. A guy gave it to me. Actually, it was Lavar. It isn’t an engagement ring or anything — he just gave it to me for my birthday.” “Well, that was nice of him. Seems like a good guy.” “Yes.” She wasn’t going to volunteer any more information, but it really wasn’t my business anyway. She didn’t have any supervisory authority over public works, so an office romance wasn’t going to cause problems. “Okay, add the summer concert to your list.” “All right. That puts us within $20,000.” “That’s close enough. Just stretch a revenue estimate somewhere. These numbers are going to change a lot more than that before the budget committee gets done with it.” She nodded and started gathering the papers. “So, do you and Max have all the details worked out?” I asked. She paused. “Sure, pretty much. I think we can get a lot more savings than Max does. But we’re ready to go ahead with it.” “Good.” • • • Time in city hall was driven by cycles, like the gears of a clock. We had the budget cycle, council meeting agendas, state legislative sessions, sunset clauses in ordinances, citizen newsletter deadlines, election filing dates, and the annual financial audit. The cycles overlapped, and hit us in a series of uneven waves. It seemed like we would meet one milestone, only to plunge immediately into a dozen more urgent tasks. In the middle of all this, the union contracts had to be negotiated, with their own sets of expiration dates and timelines.“Are you getting any closer to a settlement?” I asked Ken Longstreet when he stopped by my office. “No. Every time we think we can declare an impasse, the firefighters make some minor concession, and then pull out some new issue to debate. It looks like they’re intentionally dragging it out.” “Sure. They’re waiting for us to make a move.” “Probably. At least they’re finally putting some of the compensation issues on the table. Of course, they want parity with the police.” “Won’t that make them look bad after their public statement about a wage freeze?” Ken shrugged. “Nobody will know about it for a long time — one of the ground rules we agreed upon was that the negotiations would be kept confidential. And they will say it’s not a wage increase by disguising it as something else. They’re talking about certification pay for anyone who has gone through Advanced Life Support, which pretty much covers all of them.” I nodded and walked over to the window. Fog filled the Willamette valley like a thick white river. “Do you think they’ll find our contingency accounts?” I asked. Since we had to go public with the budget, we had to set aside money for an eventual contract settlement. Ken and Betty Sue had figured an overall increase equivalent to the change in the Consumer Price Index, and tucked it away in a few obscure line items like property and liability insurance. “They might. But they’ve never paid much attention to our budget or ability to pay when making their demands.” “Yes, but an arbitrator could, if it comes to that.” “Then it might help us. It could establish the parameters for a settlement.” I shook my head. “Why are we kidding ourselves? An arbitrator would be even less inclined to spend time digging around in the budget. The best place to hide secrets is in financial reports — no one reads them.” Ken feigned shock. “Well, thanks a lot. Go ahead and burst my bubble.” “Okay, your annual report is an exception. People hang on to every word of it, especially all those footnotes, and the pages that say, ‘This page intentionally left blank.’ Have you ever noticed that that’s a contradictory statement?” “Yes. I know I should write, ‘This page intentionally left blank, except for this sentence, and that page number down there, and the page heading.’ Like, ‘I’m leaving, and I’m not taking anything with me. Except this thermos. And this lamp. And this — ’ ” “But that would make you a jerk, huh?” We laughed together. • • • I called Max Oakley’s office, but he was out, visiting with the president of the Chamber of Commerce. I left a message. A stack of paperwork was waiting for me, but I had a hard time mustering any enthusiasm for dealing with it.Hank Arnold walked in. I was saved. “Got my new computer up and running,” he said. “I hooked up a scanner and a printer, so I can use it like a fax machine and a copier. It’s pretty neat. Had some trouble connecting back into my Internet service, but I called them and got a new password, and now everything’s working fine. If you want to send me the council packet material through the Internet, instead of the mail, that would be fine with me.” “You know, I’ve thought about that, but a lot of the stuff on the agenda doesn’t come to us in electronic form — you know, zoning maps and consultant reports, liquor license renewal forms, Pete Koenig’s typed memos...” “Uh huh. You’d have to scan that in — probably not worth the time.” “Sure, and once we did, the packet would be a few dozen megabytes. Even with a fast modem, it would take all night for you to download it. Someday we might be there, but in the meantime we’ll have to keeping cutting down the forests.” “What’s that?” “We’ll have to keep using paper.” “Oh. Yes. Well, I got one of my cars towed away to give me more room to work on my plane in the garage. Too wet to work outside much. I had to build a wood support to hold the wings up while I hook ’em on. Took me a while to figure that one out.” In the middle of all his other hobbies and activities, Hank was building a lightweight replica of a World War II fighter plane. “Are you going to be able to fly it this summer?” “Yep, should have it finished by this summer, actually.” Hank gave me the complete details of his construction progress, his most recent golf score, the challenges his car-racing club faced in finding a new track, and the venues where his bluegrass band was playing. If he had asked if he was taking too much of my time, I was going to tell him that the city manager’s job is to talk to council members. But he didn’t ask. “...So with all that, and dealing with city issues, I’m keeping pretty busy. But the reason I stopped by was to see if there’s anything going on that I should know about” “Yes, as a matter of fact, there is something involving planes,” I said. “You know the fixed base operator at the Trillium Airport, Olaf Larson? He reckons there’s a need for more hangar space, says that people don’t want to leave their planes out in the weather.” “Hangars? Yes, I can see that. Wouldn’t use one myself. Unless I had to, of course, if I needed to work on my plane. But there are a lot of fellows who don’t care so much about the cost.” “Yeah, well, Larson wants the city to be a partner in this. He wants us to pay for the hangars. He’ll lease space for his operation, and contract with us to be the property manager for the rest of it.” “He wants us to build them? Can’t he do that himself?” “Well, he says he’s deep enough in debt from starting his business. He can’t get another loan.” “Oh. I see. Will the rent be enough to cover the cost?” “More than enough, based on the numbers we have so far. It would help cover some of our cost of owning the airport.” “Well, then, it sounds like a good idea to me. Let’s do it.” “Okay. I’ll put it on one of the next agendas. The council has to take formal action on it.” “Yes. Well, I better get going. Keep up the good work.” “Sure.” • • • That afternoon, Max Oakley called back.“Max, Betty Sue has worked up some graphics — have you gone over those with her?” “Yes. I think they will be helpful. I made some suggestions on improving them, but it was a good start.” “So you’re ready?” “Yes.” “Good. I appreciate the work you’ve done on this.” “All right.” He paused. “Tell me Ben, has Simon made any plans about retirement yet?” “Uh, no. He’s talked about it in general, but nothing specific. And I’m not going to push it — I’m not in a hurry for him to leave.” “I see.” “Why — have you given more thought to the idea of a combined public safety department?” “Yes. I’ve come to the conclusion that it could be beneficial.” “Okay, good.” “But I don’t want to wait forever to see it happen.” “Umm.” What did he expect me to do? “I wouldn’t worry. With the cushy public safety pension system you guys have, it’s going to cost Simon more to work than to retire pretty soon.” The line was silent. Jake Wildavsky was standing in my doorway. “Well, Max,” I said. “Thanks again for all your help on this. I’ll talk to you later.” I nodded to Jake and he sat down next to my desk. “Working on your budget presentation, eh?” he said. “Yeah, we’re getting close. So, what’s up?” “I need a raise.” “Oh?” “Yep, I think I need a raise.” I looked at him and waited. “You see,” Jake said, “I’m not just a public works director, I’m a detective too. Don’t you think that’s worth something?” He grinned. “Sure,” I said. “Here’s the story. Remember the family whose sewer backed up just before Thanksgiving?” “Vaguely.” “Well, we didn’t admit liability or anything, but we put them up in a motel. Didn’t want the bad press of a family spending Thanksgiving surrounded by sewage.” “Right.” “They put all sorts of charges on their motel bill — meals, movies, you name it. I couldn’t believe the final bill when we got it. But anyway, we were stuck with figuring out the cause of the backup. None of the neighbors had a problem, but the blockage didn’t seem to be in the lateral to the home, either. They have a five-foot sewer easement in their backyard where the sewer trunk runs, so we ran a TV down there to see what was going on. Found a metal post sticking in the pipe.” “How did it get there?” “I’m coming to that. We got around that one, and found four more posts further down, all in a row. Here’s what happened. When the guy’s pea crop or whatever was finished, he tried to pull the posts out of the ground, but couldn’t. So he decided to punch ’em into the dirt. He got them most of the way in, but then he hit what he thought was a rock. So he took out his sledge hammer and just hit ’em harder — right through our concrete sewer pipe. Did it with all five of them.” “What a goof ball. So did you bill him for the pipe replacement?” “Yeah. But he said his insurance wouldn’t cover it, and claimed that he didn’t have anything to do with the posts, that they must have been put there by the previous owner. So Simon helped us out — we had the posts sent to the state forensic lab, and they determined the posts had been in the ground for less than a year. The guy bought the house two and a half years ago. And the neighbors confirmed that he had some kind of garden, and one even thought that they had heard him pounding something back there in late October or so.” “Good work, Sherlock. So the case is closed?” “Not quite. We agreed to pick up the motel tab. But we still want him to pay for the pipe repair — it wound up costing around $4,500. So it looks like we have to take him to court.” “Okay. Do what you have to do.” • • • Oregon law included a bizarre provision that required local governments to form a “budget committee” that would set the upper limit each year for spending and for the property tax levy. The committee was made up of five additional residents, appointed by the council, who would join the five city council members in making budget decisions, as if having ten — instead of five — citizens setting the budget in a city of over forty thousand people somehow made it more legitimate. And it made even less sense when the property tax levy was fixed by the ballot measure, and no longer set by the city council. But we went through the motions anyway.The budget committee members included an accountant, the information services manager for a hospital, a retired teacher, a retired secretary, and the owner of a small manufacturing company. They straggled in and took their seats at the conference table, making awkward jokes and small talk to bridge the time since their last meeting a year ago. The city council members joined in for a while, and then broke off into quiet side conversations, waiting for the mayor to show up. Betty Sue Castle and Ken Longstreet sat with me. The other department heads sat in chairs that lined the walls. Brian Gallagher and a handful of firefighters were off to the side, arms folded. Sabrina Chan from The Oregonian sat with the staff and leafed through the draft budget document. She could have picked it up a few days earlier, but didn’t, to my relief. I didn’t want it showing up in the paper before I had a chance to brief the council. Diane McTavish swept in and dropped her papers and files at her place at the table. “Okay, let’s get started,” she said, slightly out of breath. “For the benefit of the non-council members here, we asked Ben to give us a range of options for balancing the budget under ballot measure 5-47. Since it’s going to affect the final budget, we thought it would be a good idea if you were in on it. I have to be up front about one thing, though. Some of these options involve changes in the organization or in the programs that the city offers. The council members and I are interested in your comments and ideas on those, but the council has final responsibility for them, and we reserve the right to make the final decisions. Any problems with that?” The business owner raised his eyebrows, but the rest nodded assent. “Good. All right, Ben, it’s your show.” “Thanks. As Diane said, our charge was to give you some options, and that’s what we’ve done. We’re also giving you a recommendation on how to balance the budget, but this is clearly a policy decision that is up to the council — you can take or leave our recommendations, and we understand that.” I flipped the switch on a video projector that was connected to Ken’s notebook computer. Betty Sue dimmed the lights. “Here’s where we are with the property tax,” I said. A bright yellow line sliced through the deep blue background, climbing steadily, flattening, then dropping. “This is our levy over the past fifteen years. Years ago, a state constitutional change limited the levy to a six percent increase per year, plus the value of any property that annexed to the city. Then the voters approved a ballot measure that capped the tax rate itself. That apparently wasn’t good enough, so the Trillium citizens passed measure 5-47, that actually cut the rate, and then capped the rate of increase of assessed value, regardless of increases in the real market value of property. So our property tax revenue has dropped sharply, compared to every measure that we could think of.” I clicked on the mouse. The property tax line was joined by others, all showing steady increases. “Our population has gone up. Property values have gone up. County-wide personal income has gone up — a lot. And check this one out — the state income tax has gone up more than all, in percentage terms. While we’re dealing with a combination of state- and locally-imposed tax limitations, the state government itself is rolling in dough.” The screen wiped to a different set of graphs. “We can’t measure it as well, but it seems the demand for our services has gone up, too. Here are the trends in the number of crimes reported, library books circulated, senior meals served, recreation class participants, water customers, emergency medical calls. They’re all up. “Here’s a pie chart showing all our revenues. Property tax makes up less than a tenth of it. And here are our total expenses, split into different services. The public works areas — water, sewer, streets, storm drainage — make up the majority of the pie. But check this out — when you take out all the services that have their own revenue sources, like water rates or building permit fees, look what you’re left with. The areas that depend on the property tax are police, fire, the library, recreation, and senior services. So even though it’s a relatively small part of the total budget, it affects services that mean a lot to people.” The budget committee members and Maggie Henderson were watching intently, but the rest of the city council members were starting to fidget. They knew this part of the story and wanted to get to the meat. “And this means our options are relatively limited, too. We either need to find cost savings in these areas, or find some other general revenue sources. In other words, saving money in the water department is good for our customers, but it won’t help us offset the property tax loss. “So where does this leave us? We’ve prepared a series of options you can look at — here’s a list of them, with our estimates for savings or additional revenue. The ones in red are the ones we used to balance the budget, but you can pick any combination you want.” The mayor leaned forward to read the screen. Seth wrote some figures down. “The largest area of savings is in the area labeled fire and medical re-deployment. It’s a major issue, and we need to spend some time with it. By way of introduction, we first approached this as a way to save money. And there’s no doubt about it, we have an opportunity for some substantial savings. But the more we looked at it, the more it seemed a better way to provide service. In a way, this is the holy grail of any business or well-run government: a way to provide better service at less cost. I’d like to ask Fire Chief Max Oakley to give you the details.” Max stood and addressed the committee. “Yes. What we are proposing to do is to re-deploy our forces to specifically target the differing needs of fire suppression and emergency medical services. Rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach, we would target manpower and apparatus to fire fighting as necessary, and do the same for emergency medical service. Let me explain how this would work.” Max shot a laser pointer at a chart showing the current staffing and shifts at the three fire stations. “Our workforce deployment is currently aligned in accordance with traditional fire fighting patterns. The fact is, however, that majority of our calls fall in the area of emergency medical services.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sabrina scribbling furiously. Gallagher looked bored. He undoubtedly had the current staffing level committed to memory — he threatened union action any time we talked about reducing it. “Our proposal is to provide comprehensive fire suppression service, with the primary response from Station One. This will provide a solid baseline response for the protection of property. A critical component of this deployment, however, is continued emphasis on fire prevention, building plans review for fire and life safety, and especially smoke alarms. Early detection of a fire is the single most important element for both property safety and life safety.” Betty Sue was making a visible effort to keep from speaking. But most of Max’s listeners were nodding sagely — if they didn’t know what he was talking about, they didn’t want to show it. Rob Titus interrupted. “If the primary response is out of Station One, won’t there be a negative impact on response times to the more remote edges of the city?” Rob had — weeks earlier — asked this question privately, and I thought he had been satisfied with the answer. “For the fire apparatus, yes,” Max said. “But again, the critical time factor in a fire is detecting it, and getting a report called in so that we can respond to it. Studies have shown the response time in rolling to a fire is less important. We don’t feel there will be an effect on property loss. And under this proposal, we will be able to respond more quickly to medical emergencies and other threats to life safety.” Max nodded at Betty Sue and a map of the city filled the screen. “We propose to deploy mobile two-man emergency medical teams. We will be able to configure the number and location of the teams according to our documented patterns for medical calls. During times of the day when the call volume is typically low, we will have three teams. They will — “ “What if someone has a heart attack then?” Rob Titus asked. Another question he knew the answer to. “People don’t always schedule their medical emergencies according to our staffing patterns.” “If you think about it,” Max said, “this is no different than our current situation. With the fixed staffing level that we now employ, the closest unit may be in service when you have your heart attack. So the response may come from a more remote station, or possibly from a station in a neighboring jurisdiction. Individual situations will still exist, but on average, we will be able to provide a better response if we can tailor our manpower levels to the variations in our call patterns. Let me show you. Betty Sue, bring up the chart with the call pattern.” This was a diversion from their prepared script, but Betty Sue reacted calmly. In a moment a scattergram filled the screen. “Here are the number of medical calls by hour of the day, taken over 150 days last year. As you can see, there are day-to-day fluctuations, but there is a general trend to the pattern. And the pattern isn’t flat. So during these shifts” — he used his pointer — “we can deploy four units, and during these shifts, three units will be sufficient. This is no different than the way we staff our police patrol shifts. And of course, most private-sector organizations use a similar technique to match staffing levels with demand. Does this answer your question, councilor?” “Yes, very well,” Rob said. Max looked at his notes. “All right. This map shows the approximate location of the medical response units, but note that they can be mobile. For example, they may move closer to schools during the day and closer to retirement homes at night. You may ask about the call that falls outside this pattern. Again, this happens now, since not all medical emergencies conveniently happen next to our fire stations, and it is very expensive to move fire stations in response to different patterns of physical development. So having mobile emergency response units is a better approach.” I couldn’t tell if the budget committee was buying this. They seemed to be nodding at the right times, but that could have just been out of respect for the fire chief. The presentation was going well, and Betty Sue’s graphics gave it a professional touch. I doubted the committee members were thinking about the political implications of what we were proposing, but they were insulated from that anyway. No one would walk up to them in a grocery store and say, “Hey, wasn’t that you on the city budget committee that voted for this fire deal?” Whatever they were thinking, I felt a weight beginning to lift. It was out of my hands now. I wanted the committee members to give the council some encouragement, and I wanted the council to back our proposal, but it was still their decision. And I had to admit to myself that if they decided not to, my life would be simpler. “Max, would you be recommending this if we weren’t facing a budget crisis?” The question came from Seth as the chief wrapped up his comments. “No,” he said immediately. I couldn’t believe my ears. “Oh? Seth said. “Why is that?” “I do believe that what we are proposing is a more efficient deployment of personnel. But I believe it will be much more difficult to hire and retain staff. The fire service has established a tradition of 24-hour shifts and responding to emergency medical calls. A non-traditional approach will not be consistent with the expected career path of the fire service — “ “What does that mean?” McTavish asked. “Do you think the city government exists to provide career paths for firefighters? Do we collect taxes so that we can provide jobs that keep to traditions?” “No,” Max said. “I’m just responding to council member Rosenberg’s question. Recruiting and retaining staff is a practical concern, and as a manager, I’m also concerned about staff morale.” “So you don’t want to rock the boat, even if you believe that you can provide more efficient and more effective service to our citizens?” “Don’t misunderstand me. I support Ben in this proposal. I don’t see many alternatives to it under the budget limitations we have. But there are good reasons why we didn’t pursue it before.” Betty Sue leaned over to me and whispered, “So it’s your proposal now.” One of the budget committee members looked up from his papers. “You’re showing fairly significant savings here. How are you going to achieve that without layoffs?” “You’re right,” Ken Longstreet said. “We won’t see the full savings in the first few years. We plan to let the personnel reduction happen through normal attrition. We’ve still got enough cash in the bank to let us make the transition without layoffs.” I had talked about this with Ken before. The “attrition” of staff would be anything but normal. If the firefighters followed through on their threats, there would be a mass exodus. Some would bail out with early retirement, and others would go to the Portland Fire Bureau or Tualatin Valley Fire. It was a mixed blessing. We would get our salary and fringe savings sooner, and some of the hotheads would be the first to leave. But many of our best staff would quietly resign and find a place where they could do their jobs without as much conflict. We would be left with resentful mediocrity. The questions continued for a while. The teacher and the business owner said the proposal made a lot of sense. The accountant noted that we could see additional savings if we leased out one of the fire stations as office space. The retiree wondered how our mutual aid agreement with neighboring jurisdictions would work if we had such a non-traditional approach. It was a good question. After a while, the mayor pointed out that they didn’t need to make a decision now. I introduced the presentations from the other departments, and then sat back and watched with a mixture of amusement and admiration as the department heads pulled out their budget tricks. Will Samuels made a case for the replacement of some beat-up old furniture in the parks department conference room. It sounded good, but the fact was that he had never had the furniture in his budget in the first place. It was all scrounged from other departments when Will converted a spare office into a meeting room. Simon Garrett argued for the addition of a traffic enforcement officer. The money from fines, he said, would not only cover the officer’s salary, but it would help close the budget gap. I remembered that he had made the same argument six years ago. When Simon had gotten the officer trained and on the street, the revenue from citations did jump up, enough to cover the cost, but it dropped back down a few years later. With the growth in the city’s population, the officer was too busy responding to calls to write many tickets. Bess Wilson somberly described the setback to our long-range planning work that would result from our proposed cuts to consultant contracts for inventories of trees and historic properties, and for the establishment of airport overlay zones. These were all state mandates, and Bess had never wanted to do them in the first place. They had carried forward in her budget for the past three years, unspent. I had asked Bess if there would be repercussions from the state if we didn’t do the work. She had replied, “Screw ’em. Let them pay for it.” Jake Wildavsky focused the budget committee’s attention on proposed reductions in landscaping in the street medians and in the planting strips between the curbs and sidewalks. The strategy worked — they didn’t seem to notice the huge water and sewer budgets, which included several new trucks, a backhoe, twenty thousand dollars worth of personal computers and drafting software, and fifteen million dollars worth of new pipes and improvements to the treatment plants. Diane McTavish and Seth Rosenberg — and probably Hank Arnold — knew what the department heads were up to. They didn’t resent it. They knew that the staff needed to get the resources to do their jobs, and this was just part of the song and dance. Sort of like the rules for haggling with a merchant in a Hong Kong alley. You knew what the outcome was going to be, but custom and courtesy called for playing out the script. By 11 everyone was exhausted, and the mayor adjourned the meeting • • • A week later we were back at the same place. The Oregonian had run an article with the headline, “Trillium City Manager Calls for Restructuring Fire Service.” Sabrina Chan had done a good job in summarizing the proposal, and the very fact that it was a careful, objective report guaranteed that few readers would pay any attention to it. Halfway through the article, Brian Gallagher was quoted as saying that the firefighters supported improved efficiency, but that a top-down approach wasn’t the way to achieve it. Sabrina hadn’t followed up with the question of exactly how the firefighters proposed to save money in a bottom-up approach — or maybe her editor had cut it out to save space.“I don’t know about the fire proposal,” Rob Titus said, and wiped some spit off his lip. “I have considered all the options, and the needs of our constituents, and I am convinced we need to reduce services in all areas, not just in fire. So I am going to vote for that — an across-the-board reduction.” McTavish squinted at him. “But if Ben and Max are right, we’re not looking at a reduction of service in fire.” “Maybe not in EMS, but you can’t convince me that concentrating our firefighting personnel in just one station isn’t going to reduce our fire protection. I just don’t see it.” “I have the same concern,” the teacher said. “I’m worried about the safety of our residents — to me, that’s the most important thing.” Betty Sue leaned over to me. “What made her change her mind?” It was easy for me to imagine. The firefighters association called on the school union leadership in Salem, who put pressure on the local, who had a little chat with our budget committee member. It probably all took place within twelve hours of last week’s meeting. The curious thing was why they hadn’t gotten to her sooner. But I kept my opinion to myself, and shrugged. “I don’t know about that,” Hank Arnold said. “I think Max laid it out pretty well. But if we have concerns about it, we can try it out for a while, and if it doesn’t work, go back to the old way. It’s not like the fire stations are going to go away.” Ken Longstreet raised his eyebrows. He was trying to picture what the firefighters would do if we approached it as an experiment. There were a hundred creative ways they could come up with to make sure it failed. It reminded me of a Midwest town that once thought it would be a neat idea if their police officers drove Checker cabs. The vehicles were built to last a few hundred thousand miles, and to be driven day and night. The experiment, of course, failed. The cars had a surprisingly high tendency to be totaled in accidents, including a mysterious incident where one of the Checkers ended up in a lake. “Uh, I think we have to make a decision to back this, or not,” Seth said quietly. “We can’t go halfway.” “Yes, I agree,” Hank said. The hospital IT manager said, “Why don’t we start listing the cuts we all agree with? Once we do that, we can see what kind of a gap we’re left with.” “Great idea,” McTavish said. Betty Sue kept a running tally on a flip chart. In a few cases, it took a while to get consensus. If there was a holdout on a decision, the mayor would keep the discussion going until the dissenter was worn down. But after an hour they were done, and the gap was about what I expected it to be — roughly equal to the savings from the fire proposal. They sat and stared at Betty Sue’s flip chart, hoping for some other alternative to appear. The business owner finally spoke. “The solution seems fairly obvious. We can cut services to Trillium residents and businesses, or we can make the delivery of fire and EMS service more efficient. I recognize that doing so would cause some turmoil in the fire department, but the city doesn’t exist for the benefit of the employees.” “I agree,” said the computer manager. “Okay. Let’s go around the table and see where we stand on this,” McTavish said. “Should we follow through on the fire proposal? Seth?” “Yes.” “Hank?” “Yes, I think it’s in — ” “No,” Rob said, They continued around the table. All voted yes, except the teacher. “Maggie?” “Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard. Yes, I guess.” • • • In our staff meeting the next morning, the department heads were more animated than usual. They had escaped serious cuts, and the budget process was over. Even Max seemed cheerful. It occurred to me that they all liked change, and except for Ken, they thrived on chaos. I figured that they would really enjoy the next few months.For the first time, I began to think there was a good chance we could pull this off. A lot of my colleagues had talked about doing something different with their fire departments, but none had been able to follow through. I let my mind wander to thoughts of giving a presentation at the next International City/County Management Association conference, or writing an article for Governing magazine. • • • Later, I got on the Internet to check out the latest developments from the League of Oregon Cities in Salem. A new message caught my eye.
Next chapter: creating new things Copyright © 2001, Scott D. Lazenby. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the author is prohibited. Illustration: Paul Salmon |
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