At the end of last week, the City of Tulsa had initiated a hiring freeze. Tulsa has lost $1.8 million in revenues over the last two months. Seattle where the pandemic hit hard is projecting more than $110 million in lost revenue, and that isn’t counting the losses from stay at home orders.
Prior to the pandemic, most cities and governmental units were handling challenges to their budgets. The fire service wasn’t suffering too badly across the nation. The pandemic has changed everything.
Most government administrators haven’t issued cut back instructions to their fire chiefs yet, but it’s coming. Fire administrators should order while their line items are still intact, those line items will be a lot different very soon. With budgets due soon for 2021, the marching orders for cut backs are coming.
Administrations, station captains, volunteer and union officials should look for what can be purchased now and how to survive leaner times that are coming for the next year and possibility the next two years. The writing is on the wall, and back to work hasn’t been announced yet in any format.
The Third Bugle 