Revenue and Expenditures

Fire department budgets tend to be one of the larger budgets within the city government, second only to the police department. Overall, public safety initiatives (police and fire) are frequently account for about 50% of a city budget. Most revenue is generated from property taxes for a municipality. Some municipalities have special taxing districts for fire services, or the department can be required by ordinance to receive a set percentage of property tax revenue. These revenues are supplemented with money from the state and federal government. There are numerous grants available to fire departments that can be used for general funding or for very specific programming needs.

The biggest expenditure for fire services are personnel costs. Firefighters have several well-known unions and have traditionally good benefits packages. However, fire services also require a lot of costly equipment and tools. Cost sharing with other fire departments for training facilities or dispatch services, purchasing cooperatives, strategic alliances, consolidation, and outsourcing are all cost saving strategies that should be considered by public managers. For large departments, these alternative service delivery techniques can provide revenue, and for smaller departments they can be a way to provide fire services at a reduced cost.