Here’s My Plan to Save the City Some Money, What’s Yours?

Whether you agree with the new budget cuts or not, the City of Quincy is between a rock and a hard place. The $2-Million revenue stream from the State of Illinois is all but gone and the city needs to find ways to offset that loss. That is not an easy task. So it is time to come up with some creative thinking.

With that in mind, I have always heard that it costs the city every time they send out a fire truck to what would normally be an ambulance call. In an effort to be the first       res-ponder it is important that the fire truck respond to a call if it can get there before the ambulance can. We have all seen both a fire truck and an ambulance at the scene of many of these calls in the past. Perhaps that policy should change.

But how can we do it without affecting the response times and service needed to the crisis area? Here is my solution. With what will soon be 5 strategically located fire stations (actually 4 in the city limits) open, around the city, why not come to an agreement with the Adams County Board to locate the three city housed Adams County Ambulances at three of the city’s fire stations. By being located strategically around the city their response time would be quicker than if they were housed at Blessing Hospital’s 16^th Street Campus as they are now. Under this scenario, there would be no need to also send a fire truck which would save the city some money with each call.

As far as the other one fire station without an ambulance, they could respond as they have in the past until an ambulance arrived on the scene. Another option might be to eventually purchase a smaller, but fully equipped, SUV for that fire station and utilize the smaller response vehicle instead of sending out one of the larger trucks on the medical calls.

In case you were wondering, the Quincy Fire Department made 3559 “runs” or nearly 10 calls a day over a 12 month period of time and 2007 of them, or 56%, were medical related. The costs come from wear and tear on the trucks and also workman’s compensation costs involved with these calls. The firefighters would be paid anyway.

Will this plan offset a $2 million dollar revenue loss for the city? No…. but it is one of many possible creative options that the City could save some money. Other options to save the city money may be available. I challenge all of you come up with more ideas to save the city money. Smart decisions and creative thinking, hopefully should get the city through this budget crisis.

And that’s the way I see it!