By Tanya Eiserer
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2007 The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — Dallas Fire-Rescue is a house divided — sometimes against itself, according to a major independent efficiency study.
The study sent late Friday to Dallas City Council members says the “core challenge” is that the department is hobbled by bureaucratic in-fighting.
But it also lacks equipment and needs to improve the way it uses its manpower by, for example, assuring regular inspections of hazardous material sites such as the one destroyed in July in a major gas explosion near downtown.
City officials say the fixes could cost more than $15 million over the next four years.
“I realize that it’s going to be a challenge but we will overcome this,” Fire Chief Eddie Burns said in an interview Friday. “We will make the necessary changes to move the department forward.”
The 400-plus page study found that three major areas of the department’s bureaucracy — firefighting, investigations/inspections and medical services — aren’t communicating well and frequently resent and distrust each other.
The result? Residents may not be getting the service they need. And within the department, poor practices in management and training have lead to lax financial oversight, flawed promotion processes and frequent complaints about racism and sexism.
The study by the Ohio-based hired Berkshire Advisors Inc. does not detail how service may have been adversely affected by poor internal practices or a lack of resources.
But both Chief Burns and First Assistant City Manager Ryan Evans cited July’s massive acetylene explosion — which destroyed Southwest Industrial Gases and injured three people — as an illustration of the kinds of problem the department faces.
A crew at the nearby fire station had conducted a walk-through in November 2005 to familiarize themselves with the property in the event of a fire. But fire inspectors hadn’t conducted a safety inspection in more than five years.
Neither the firehouse crew nor the inspectors had communicated with each other about what they had done, officials said.
The consultants also found that the department doesn’t have enough fire personnel dedicated to inspecting existing high-risk structures.
Chief Burns said fire inspections don’t “have a defined plan of which ones they were going to do. It looks like they’re doing the same ones over and over.”
He said the department plans to set up an inspection schedule so that such places are inspected for fire and safety hazards on an annual or biannual basis.
They recommended having fire crews conduct inspections and creating 26 short-term positions to conduct a comprehensive review of high-risk buildings such as apartments, high-rises, and hazardous materials locations that currently aren’t being inspected on a regular basis.
Along the same lines, the consultants called upon the city to invest in ways to improve the department’s response to hazardous materials incidents. Currently there’s only one haz mat crew for the whole city.
Chief Burns said he was shocked that the department didn’t have several satellite haz mat stations, as is the case in Fort Worth, where he worked before being hired last year.
“I don’t know how they were operating,” he said. “I guess they were lucky.”
The study calls for adding five hazardous materials crews around the city.
“We’ve been pushing for that for years,” said Capt. Mike Buehler, president of the Dallas Fire Fighters Association, which represents more than 1,000 of Dallas Fire-Rescue’s roughly 1,700 firefighters.
“When we have a haz mat situation of any size, we call Irving or Plano to assist us. That’s ridiculous. We’re one of the largest, busiest cities in the country.”
The study emphasizes giving existing personnel additional training in specialized areas. In addition to more haz mat crews, these kinds of changes would include creating a swift water rescue team and an urban wild lands fire rescue team.
Already, the city staff has proposed more than $1 million in additional spending for the department in the budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year.
Chief Burns said the study confirmed many shortcomings that he and his staff had already identified and have been working to correct since he took command in April 2006.
The consultants praised Chief Burns’ efforts so far, finding that he had “hit the ground running” in terms of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the department.
“The chief has overseen a systematic assessment of the department’s culture, developed a 100-day plan to guide initiatives during his first months on the job, and invested considerable time and effort to establishing himself as a visible leader,” the consultants wrote in their report.
Mr. Evans, who oversees the police and fire departments, said the study will serve as a roadmap for the city to follow.
“The chief has identified these issues,” Mr. Evans said. “Berkshire has confirmed them and now it’s our responsibility to address them and we are.”
Capt. Buehler said his initial reaction was that they wasted $250,000 on the study.
“If you go through and look at the recommendations, that’s exactly what we’ve been telling them for years,” he said.
“The fire department for years has taken a back seat in public safety and that’s exactly what this study shows,” he said. “Someone should be held accountable for not having given us the resources to do our job.”
The heads of associations representing black and Hispanic firefighters said they want to fully review the study before commenting.
Significant challenges lie ahead.
One is addressing strong “undercurrents” of racial and gender divisions among department personnel, according to the study.
Many fire department employees told the consultants that disciplinary and hiring decisions differed depending on one’s race or ethic background. And in a department that’s largely male, “attitudes ranging from antipathy to hostility with regard to female employees are barely disguised in some areas” particularly among firefighters, the consultants said.
Moreover, the major areas of the fire department don’t work in concert to benefit the whole department, hampering “efforts to provide efficient and effective services” to the public, the study found. “Over the years, rivalries among operational units have developed that have bred dissension and resentment between units.”
“We’re not working together as much as we could,” Chief Burns acknowledged. We need to make sure that all of our people are on the same page.”
To help knock down walls, the consultants recommend that the department overhaul the way it operates, giving more authority for emergency medical operations, fire prevention and arson investigations to supervisors covering smaller geographic areas.
Chief Burns compared it to the fire department’s version of community-based policing.
“This will empower our employees to take control of a geographic area where they’ll responsible for the fire situation, the EMS situation, and inspections,” he said. The chief said the department is taking a more decentralized approach “to get really in touch with the community.”
But fire officials said they don’t agree with all of the consultant’s recommendations.
They recommended allowing fire personnel who are working shifts as paramedics to also fight fires. Fire officials said they didn’t think it made sense.
“If there was a victim or a firefighter injured, we want to make sure our folks are standing by to provide that emergency medical service,” said Chief Burns.
The study also concluded had also said the department could reduce the number of total fire engines by three, but fire officials said they believe this would lower the quality of service to residents.
“We’re looking at what’s going to help us start turning the department around and morale around, and what’s going to keep our citizens safe,” Chief Burns said.
City Council members are expected to begin discussing the report next week.