Automatic & Mutual Aid - Functional Consolidation , "Achieving Success through City-County Collaboration"

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2014

Fire Departments provide one of the most essential services needed in every community across the country. Programs are built on jurisdictional boundaries of political subdivisions, such as cities and counties. There are a number of constraints such as ISO ratings that further justify such boundaries, but inefficient service delivery and high costs are inherent. In Camden County, intergovernmental cooperation and coordination has been used to address the main drawbacks to these common problems. The intergovernmental cooperation and coordination is demonstrated by multiple jurisdictions agreeing to a functional consolidation using ‘automatic aid’. Automatic aid refers to the nearest unit responding regardless of which participating jurisdiction it is from. The results have allowed fiscal savings by closing one station and redeploying the associated resources. While saving money, the service levels for citizens have also increased which makes this program particularly worthwhile.