Point of Recognition. That’s the term to describe the moment when you finally realize the situation you are in. The current economic and budget climates have been met with fiscal cutbacks and layoffs. Leaders have stated that they hope to go back to the “normal” way of doing things soon once conditions let up. But have they truly reached a point of recognition as they assess the present economic landscape?
When Wall Street experienced the “Flash Crash of 2010″ on May 6th, a new era was exposed. But after holding investigations and hearings to try to explain the event, in the end, the explanations released ranged from unknown to a confluence of events leading up the to the crash. Wall Street has still not reached the point of recognition of the new era we are in although it has been said that the stock market is an indicator of the economy six months out. If it is a true indicator of where we are headed then we better get ready for our own flash crash event(s).
If your public safety department is like mine, you have either experienced fiscal cutbacks, furloughs, layoffs, rolling brownouts, delayed hiring, etc. Many leaders have indicated how they have already cut to the bone. If that is really the case, what are their plans if the fiscal picture gets worse? Are leaders then prepared to amputate? Are their frank discussions going on with unions and elected officials? Or are we all forestalling reaching a point of recognition of the special era we are in that may be once in a generation.
Trending for budgets has in the past normally been based on a few points increase every year mostly for inflation. Lucky growing Metro departments experienced greater increase percentages along with large capital inlays. But the sharp revenue reversals have struck these departments hard who now find they must cut more steeply than the other slow/no growth departments. I recently asked a large city Metro fire chief if his pessimistic budget scenarios have played out to which he admitted 3 out of the 6 scenarios have come to fruition. When I pressed him for the other 3 he refused to divulge the remaining scenarios that he has prepared himself for. Those scenarios must have been pretty draconian. Good. Lucky for the city he serves that they have a chief who has a realistic picture of the current landscape. How about you? What scenario responses have you planned out? Or is your head stuck in the sand?
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” This FDR quote rings true today. Fear causes paralysis that prevents reaching your point of recognition. Only after accepting these increasingly austere times as a long-term trend can you begin adapt a realistic plan of action to better deal with today’s rapidly evolving finances. Get bearish or get some bears around you. And start to prepare.
Today’s public safety leader must be versed to some degree in trend forecasting and analysis. Otherwise he or she will be relegated to “hatchet man” status when city managers inform them of ever increasing budget cuts. Mindset will play a great difference between a manager reacting to cuts and chopping away at capacity while a leader takes bold action to implement new practices to survive cuts and maintain service delivery goals.
Prudent leaders must be aggressive in preparing for austere fiscal environments at higher levels of degree.
Statehouses across the country have made it clear to their towns and cities that very little relief will be provided to offset budget deficits. New Jersey has gone as far as to cancel PILOT payments to municipalities with no notice late in the current fiscal year, further adding to the unstable revenue stream climate facing municipal leaderships.
Governments grappling with collapsing revenues are now seeing a new class of government leaders very publicly attacking public worker ranks. Their strategy seems to rely heavily on efforts to aggressively reduce the present salaries, benefits, and number of government workers at the state and local levels. This throws the management-labor compact of mutual cooperation out the window. In some states, workers are being portrayed in a very negative light as part of a campaign to force unions to re-bargain contracts. But what can management offer labor in order to
How can you extract more work output when at the same time workers are forced to deal with furloughs, wage and benefit concessions, and the constant threat of layoffs? And how can the local government leader deal with a shrinking and demoralized workforce along with cutbacks on capital assets purchases (think fire engines), maintenance, and having to fund new police hires and academies?
During my military career, I witnessed my organization reduce personnel strength two thirds. That’s right. My US Air Force Reserve flying squadron started with an authorized strength of 503, and in the course of a few years the strength was pared down to 167 personnel. During that time no one believed that the threats of the shrinking due to the “Peace-Time Dividend” after the Gulf War and the recession that followed would come to effect us in such a way. But it happened and guess what? The mission was still accomplished. But it took a lot of changes in the way we operated, and most importantly: our leaders made great decisions.
Of course not everything went smoothly and there was some pain. But the changes in attitude and environment also caused a good portion of the old leaders to retire. This reduced personnel and created promotional opportunities when few were expected. This allowed the future leaders to rise to become the new leaders, bringing new energy and less resistance to the new operating environment. As such over time, the organization better evolved to have capacity to handle future missions and emergencies.
One great decision was to go over the allowed table of strength on promotions for the lowest retirement grade position of Technical Sergeant. This was the rank right below senior management that traditionally most retired at. By allowing promotion overages to this rank when one was late in their career, it freed up promotion vacancies for younger personnel for a rank otherwise that could have been held by someone ‘riding it out until retirement’. The lesson learned was that it is imperative to allow a track for future leaders to continue upward along their professional development.
Another great decision was to adopt and integrate Total Quality Management (TQM) enterprise-wide. An amazing call during a harsh fiscal climate. Training and tools (manuals and support) were funded for all personnel. Buy-in occurred at all levels. TQM empowered the rank and file to communicate as never before. The mandate was clear that processes that did not fit anymore had to be immediately changed or eliminated and everybody in the organization had the power and tools to engender change. I’ve come to learn in the end, great decisions are made at some time at every level in a highly functioning organization. The leader must support the decision-making environment until employees reach an empowered state. Wow. Gives me chills just thinking about it!
Now I propose to you, who in the future will remember your great decisions. Will there be any. Have you made the moves necessary to provide best-in-kind services even during this economic emergency. Or has fear frozen you out. To quote a LAFD battalion chief a couple years ago during an impassioned class on Community Firehousing: “There is no Second Coming, you are it!“ He said this to emphasize that you have to take a direct leadership stance, even at the lowest supervisory position to bring immediate relief to your community.
So now is the time for your next great decision that will empower your team. Do not continue to conduct business the same way anymore. Declare a state of innovation emergency. The new mandate is that workers must innovate, institutions must transform, and practices must be re-engineered. “With the fierce urgency of now” and “by any means necessary.”
Leaders must foster and create an environment that empowers their people to make decisions, share information, and try new things. People occupying leadership positions must prove their worth everyday, or make way for those who can. The time for riding out the job until retirement is over. There may not be a retirement if conditions continue on their present course. An organization must be led from strength, not desperation. The times now demand it.
It’s time to come to grips with it. It was long coming. We hoped that when the time came, it would be painless. We hoped that it didn’t happen on our watch, but it’s here. The fire service as we now know it, is undergoing it’s final death throes after pricing itself out of existence.
There was some pain toward the end. No one wanted to discuss what to do when the day arrived, let alone prepare for it. Just the mention of a local firehouse closing or even a single layoff of a firefighter would send the union publicity machines into overdrive, and politicians running for cover. As public safety budgets gobble more of a percentage of the overall budget, cities are now having to furlough or layoff personnel, close firehouses, pare down police patrols, and delay academies for new hires. The Economic Meltdown of 2008 has propelled us into the new era of large structural problems plaguing government finances. And with no relief in sight, hard times are forcing hard decisions.
The cost curve of pension and health benefits continue to rise in light of decreasing revenue. Tactics in the past decade to reallocate funds included keeping vacancies unfilled, delaying capital equipment purchases, putting off physical plant upgrades, not complying with unfunded state mandates, etc. But these actions do not constitute a viable strategy toward maintaining a capable and healthy public safety infrastructure.
Government can no longer continue to hold out for better times. They must aggressively pursue bold action using existing resources and satisfying stakeholders. What makes this situation unique, historic, and imperative, is that municipalities must scramble to replace the old institution of career public safety services (which towns can no longer afford in present form) with new solutions that can become operative in very short time. Good luck.
Unfortunately, there is no time for grief or inaction. The public demands to be served, and our job requires the administration of services to a defined standard. Any decisions drastically reducing that standard must be weighed against increasing liability exposure, constituent anger, and other political blow-back. But don’t lay down a bunt when you should be swinging for the fences.
This is my first posting of what will be a series focusing on the transformation of public safety service delivery. Constant decreasing revenues will soon force wholesale change to departments that have operated the same for over a hundred years. Some towns and cities will be able to forestall change, but in the final analysis, the longer you wait, the less monies to allocate to other priorities.
In a future posting, we will discuss a checklist toward structurally transitioning public safety services toward achieving significant staffing reductions without compromising public safety.
