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Volunteer-led fire departments are just as effective as paid departments and provide significant cost savings to communities. Local governments should reassess the need for a paid firefighting force and consider replacing it with a volunteer force. Chase Slasinski, a fiscal policy intern at the Mackinac Center, expands on the benefits of a volunteer fire department in an op-ed published in the Lansing State Journal:

As personnel costs continue to rise, municipalities will find themselves stretched thin, losing the flexibility to fund essential equipment, training and fire protection infrastructure, like hydrants and new facilities.

By replacing paid fire departments with volunteer ones, local governments will experience significant cost savings, helping both the taxpayer and the community as a whole. The data shows that for the 10 largest volunteer departments, per capita spending was 27 percent lower when compared to the 10 largest paid departments.

Quality is not sacrificed for the sake of saving money. As Slasinski explains, a common metric to determine fire department efficacy is the Insurance Service Office’s “public protection classification,” a rating based on the community’s fire suppression rating, with 1 being the best, and 10 being the worst. The Troy fire department, a force made up primarily of volunteers, has a higher quality rating than the state average (3.0 versus 6.4). In Michigan, the ISO ratings for the 10 largest volunteer departments and the 10 largest paid departments are virtually the same.

No one wants to pay more for a given quality of service. The same should be true of Michigan’s communities. By switching to volunteer forces, local communities would have additional funds to use toward other services. Better yet, the switch could put money back into the pockets of the taxpayers.

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.