Could costs be cut by sharing with EMS? Other towns?

By Joe Kelly

While plans are being developed for Norfolk to replace its current firehouse on Sheperd Road with a new building, Norfolk Now has invited readers to submit questions about this very significant project. Questions that have come up have revolved around cost savings that might be achieved through sharing resources with Norfolk’s ambulance/ emergency medical services (EMS) building,  the potential for regionalizing firefighting services with other towns and exactly how the new firehouse will be funded. 

NOTE: The questions, as well as the answers that were provided by First Selectman Matt Riiska and members of the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department—Brian Hutchins, Matt Ludwig and Paul Padua—have all been edited for brevity.

The fire department needs more room for all of its trucks, but also for an administrative office, a kitchen, a meeting room, shower/decontamination facilities, etc. Couldn’t it use the ambulance/EMS building across the street for some of those functions?
The ambulance/EMS building was completed in 2010 and was designed to meet the needs of that service specifically. The “administration section” of the EMS building would become overwhelmed if both services needed it at the same time, or even if just the fire department had an all-staff meeting. So would the very small kitchen. Firefighters frequently return from incidents covered with soot and potentially toxic residue—the ambulance building was not designed for that. Finally, having firefighters move back and forth between two locations is likely to introduce a host of complications such as vital equipment being left in one location. Many towns have combined EMS/fire facilities. Norfolk could have chosen that path in 2010 but did not do so.

Instead of each town having its own fire department, why don’t we regionalize firefighting and share the costs with other towns?
Right now, we do regionalize some firefighting functions. For example, nearly all the towns in the northwest corner rely on the centralized 911 service that operates out of Litchfield. Also, through the mutual aid system, fire departments from individual towns share equipment and manpower. So, instead of Norfolk buying an expensive aerial ladder truck, in the rare instance one is needed, we get it from another town. Beyond that, there is no real mechanism in the State of Connecticut to govern or share the costs of something like a regional firefighting system (i.e., we don’t have a county government)—all of that would need to get set up. And even if a regionalized firefighting capability were established, it’s likely that towns would still want a local fire department to ensure the best possible response time for their community. There is no town in Connecticut today that does not have its own firehouse.

What if Norfolk can’t raise the money needed to pay for the new firehouse? Is there a Plan B?At this time, there is no Plan B for funding the new firehouse. Instead, the current efforts are focused on (1) reviewing the building plans to eliminate anything that’s non-essential and (2) maximizing the money available from the State of Connecticut, the federal government, private donors and community fundraising. The plan is to raise, potentially, $5-6 million from those sources if not more. At the same time, Norfolk is in the process of retaining a construction manager who will develop a precise construction estimate by sometime this summer. That will determine how much additional money the town needs to raise through bond financing. Other communities that have faced funding shortfalls have met the challenge by building out their new firehouse and then leaving the interior of some areas unfinished. However, while this reduces the initial outlay of money, it tends to cost more over time as construction costs inevitably rise. The architect working on Norfolk’s firehouse has advised the town to count on inflation in construction costs adding six-to- eight percent annually for the foreseeable future.Editor’s note: Norfolk Now encourages readers to submit questions related to the proposed firehouse to editor@nornow.org and will attempt to answer them in future articles.