MEASURING FIRE PROTECTION EFFECTIVENESS
Because of the emotional issues involved when human lives are at stake, many consider public safety the most essential of all city services. But because these services bring in little, if any, revenue, fire and police protection often are targeted above revenue-producing areas when budget cuts are needed. In the past, emotional appeals based on the safety of human life were utilized to justify continued and increased funding for fire and police protection. However, we no longer can rely simply on emotional appeals to justify our budgets—-we need to support our appeals with facts and evidence.
The nature of fire protection has made it difficult to measure effectiveness and productivity. The question “How can you put a price on a human life?” is enough to stifle most attempts. But while you cannot objectively measure in dollars something as subjective as a human being’s potential and personality, the fact remains that life, or a loss of life, is a factor that helps measure the effectiveness of fire protection.
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