News

By Dan Moffett
 
    Preliminary results of a barrier island fire district study suggest that six coastal communities could benefit from joining forces to provide their own services, Gulf Stream Town Manager William Thrasher said.
    “There seems to be an opportunity for more efficient service at a reduced combined cost,” Thrasher said. “But there’ll need to be a redistribution of the costs.”
    The study, released in April by Texas-based Matrix Consulting Group, examined how much the six communities — Gulf Stream, Highland Beach, Briny Breezes, Ocean Ridge, Manalapan and South Palm Beach — pay mainland providers for fire-rescue services and what the towns get for their money.
    Matrix also studied the feasibility of redirecting those tax dollars into an independent fire district through which the communities would provide for themselves.
    During the next fiscal year, the six barrier island communities will spend about $7.8 million for their fire-rescue protection. If they provide their own services, the consultants estimate it would cost them about $6.7 million in operating expenses, a savings of about $1.1 million per year.
    However, the communities would need to make a substantial expenditure for stations and equipment to get started — about $4.2 million for nine vehicles and $3.2 million for a new station somewhere in the middle of the proposed district and renovations to the existing stations in Manalapan and Highland Beach.
    So, it would require the communities to come up with roughly $7.4 million to get the district off the ground, according to the preliminary numbers in the report.
    Thrasher, who has played a leading role in organizing support for the study, said the results are encouraging enough to warrant further exploration.
    Representatives from the towns planned to meet May 5 in Ocean Ridge to consider the next steps.

Response times vary
    Robert Finn, the study’s author, found that response times of the fire-rescue agencies that serve the towns vary considerably.
    Gulf Stream, which contracts with Delray Beach for services, ranked worst with an average of 9 minutes, 20 seconds per call during the 2015 fiscal year — at least three minutes longer than any other town.
    Ocean Ridge, which contracts with Boynton Beach, came in at 6 minutes, 19 seconds, followed by Highland Beach, another Delray Beach-served town, with 6 minutes, 3 seconds.
    South Palm Beach and Manalapan, with their station staffed by Palm Beach County firefighters close at hand, had the lowest response times with 5 minutes, 9 seconds and 5 minutes, 12 seconds, respectively.
    “Response times are something we need to watch closely,” said South Palm Councilman Robert Gottlieb, who noted that times have steadily crept up over the last five years. “We can’t continue to see them increase.”
    Briny Breezes (5 minutes, 41 seconds), which contracts with Boynton Beach, was the only other community with times under 6 minutes.

Other key findings
    • Of the combined $7.8 million for fire-rescue services in the current fiscal year, Briny Breezes is at the low end with $343,000 and Highland Beach is the high with $3.2 million.
    • Annual levels of demand vary among the communities. Highland Beach had the most calls for service with 632, followed by South Palm Beach (288), Manalapan (161), Ocean Ridge (144), Briny Breezes (107) and Gulf Stream (90).
    • Nearly three-quarters (71.2 percent) of the calls in the six communities are for emergency medical services.
    • Matrix also conducted an open, unscientific online survey in February that drew 282 participants. Highland Beach had the most respondents with 96, followed by Ocean Ridge with 84 and Gulf Stream with 63. The fewest respondents came from Manalapan with three, Briny Breezes had 20 and South Palm Beach 16.
    Nearly all the survey participants said that response time to emergency calls was extremely important or very important. Generally, people said they were satisfied with the response to emergency calls, fires, auto accidents and medical emergencies — all categories that polled between 96 percent and 98 percent satisfactory ratings. About 51 percent of participants rated their emergency medical services as excellent or good.
    Roughly 70 percent of the respondents said they were interested in having the six communities work together to provide services. Nearly half (46 percent) said they were willing to pay more in a fire district or a joint authority.