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Fire department services offer highly instrumental services to the society amidst many difficulties that they face in their day to day operations. A great number of the fire departments take care of an overwhelming number of calls for duty annually. High expectations placed on such organizations consist of practical salvage, dangerous occurrences, and acts of extremism and ordinary tragedy that have gradually been on the increase. This has greatly strained the budgets meant for offering of services to the community leading to departments coming up with alternative funding means and methods to curb the challenge. As a head of fire department I would advocate for a number of means and methods through which I would overcome the challenge of inadequate or low capital.

One of the means I would employ is the approach of ‘private–sector facilities’ for funding through donations (Richard 98). Annually, reserved foundations offer great sums of money in terms of donations for community improvement. Career and volunteer fire agencies would be in a position to acquire capital for the financing of their operations and purchase of tools and equipment’s. I would approach these private-sector fundamentals with care though in a bid to avoid conflict of interest.

Some societies are lucky to have public foundations whose finances are readily available to facilitate the offering of safety services to the community, new program venture and helping of less privileged areas financially. ‘I would advocate for the lobbying of endowments’ too from the wider society (Lynn 76). Some companies are quite willing to extent assistance to the community especially in cities where they have their corporate presence. On top of grants some foundations even offer ‘low-interest or no-interest loans’ which could be of great aid to my department (56). I would advocate for those loans to be used in purchase of tools and technology improvement in the department.

I would also advocate for fines, penalties and forfeitures to the members of the public who through negligence and ignorance have led to fire breakout in their facilities and also in community amenities. Members of public would be made to pay for the emergency services in high-risk rescue actions. The retrieval of charges would not only be envisioned to cover the cost of service delivery but also to amend the behavior of the wider community to deter them from carefree habits. Fines would be imposed on nuisance alarms making commercial buildings and residence areas with present ‘fire detection alarm’ which trigger without any danger to part with a good amount of funds in terms of charges (Keith 67). All the funds attained from all these levies, penalizations and drawbacks.

Sale of assets and services would be another source of income that I would recommend the department to employ. Sell of surplus equipment’s to other departments and organizations would bring a great deal of money to the department. Some of the equipment’s are barely used and if sold it would be more better other than remaining idle in the departments since they would attract loss through servicing them.

Sale of services to other organizations would be a great of income that I would approach. This includes offering of training facilities to the other organizations at a certain fee. I would advocate for the department to offer training facilities to the private sector and also other public amenities at a given fee per student or on contractual basis. ‘Also extending the fire services to the wider society’ which is not within the titled area of service (Richard 23). That means arriving into an agreement with the said areas for a quantified duration for a certain fee. This would provide quite a good amount of income to the department alleviating the strain in offering of the services to the community.

Renting of the departments facilities is another source of alternative funding that I would propose. I would rent meeting halls for party meetings, weddings, dancing classes etc. to the general public at a given duty. This would provide a large sum of money income in the bankrolling of the fire package departments.

Borrowing is another method I would use to curb the challenge of inadequate capital in the fire department. These can be done through bonds, participation certificates, traditional loans and also profit-free bonds funding. These funds would be used in purchase of equipment’s major improvements in the department and be paid over time.

‘Cost-saving’ strategies is another method I would employ in overcoming the challenge of low capital (Lynn7). This includes cost-sharing, cooperative purchase, strategic planning, subcontracting and partnership. These are innovative techniques and tools that can help reduce the cost of service delivery.

Leasing is funding strategy that I would employ too. These mean leasing of the department facilities and equipment’s to other organizations at a certain fee for a given duration. ‘Leasing permits organizations to acquire tools and equipment’s required today’ and pay in a well-spread manner over time without straining financially (FEMA 8). By doing so the department would reserve the funds available for the day to day operations.

The above discussed methods if well applied and implemented would help curb the grand challenge of inadequate or low capital facing fire service departments’ .That would ensure high quality service delivery to the society and a great working facilities and environment.

Works Cited

1. Lynn, Woolley. Disaster of an agency.2005.

2. Keith, Bea. “Proposed Transfer of FEMA to the Department of Homeland Security”. Library of Congress, 2002.

3. Richard, Falkenrath, Problems of Preparedness. Boston: International Security, 2001

4. Alexander, Khuel. Pre-hospital systems and medical oversight. Kendal: Kendal pub, 2002

5. George, James. New EMS Response times. New York times, 1990.