Sedona AZ (March 4 2011)-A fire district is its own self-contained government entity on call 24 hours/7 days a week/365 days a year. A fire district must maintain its own general government services internally. Sedona Fire District emergency operational services include Structural Firefighting, Urban Interface Wildland Firefighting, Technical Rescue which involves High Angle Rope, Shorthauls, Swift Water, Confined Space, Building Collapse, Trench, Tower, Hazardous Materials, and Emergency Medical Services/Advanced Life Support. The operational side of the fire district can only function proficiently with our internal support departments which include the following: Training, Finance and Budget Services, Information Technology and Technology Infrastructure Build, Facilities Replacement, Maintenance and Repairs, Vehicle and Fleet Replacement and Maintenance, Billing Services, Human Resource, Purchasing, Community Risk Management, and the Regional Communication Center. The general internal government service costs are included in the fire district’s overall budget. These are all costs to the taxpayers.
The training, certifications, and internal support departments directly affect the firefighter’s ability to respond to an incident and to, ultimately, result in a positive outcome for the patient, property conservation, and safety.
A fire district budget also includes Capital Improvements and replacements.
A fire district has one budget with no external support services and the budget includes Revenues and Expenditures.
The Sedona Fire District is governed by a Board of five elected official members that are charged with the fiduciary responsibility of the taxing district. The Fire Operations and Administrative Services are managed by the Fire Chief and the professional Executive Team. The Sedona Fire District encompasses 168 square miles, approximately 22,000 resident population, and about 4,000,000 visitors/tourists annually, and includes EMS Ambulance Service revenue, and a Regional Communication Center revenue.
The Sedona Fire District is here to serve you. If you ever have any doubt as to whether or not you should call for a medical or fire situation, call 911. The professionals can come out to assess your needs and determine if it is an emergency situation. If your circumstances do not require our services, we would simply return to the fire station.
For further information on your Sedona Fire District, please go to our website at www.sedonafire.org.
Nazih M. Hazime
Fire Chief
Sedona Fire District
FYI, there will be a budget presentation today at Fire Station 3 in the Village of Oak Creek at 3:00 pm. This will include the history of reductions and future projections for the Sedona Fire District budget. Following at 6:00pm, there will be a regular Fire Board workshop meeting. I encourage all to attend and get informed. Thank you for your ongoing support.
Did anyone go to this meeting? With all the hand wringing about 89A, the newly elected fire board is proposing to cut 25 firefighters from SFD. With money in the bank for just such a rainy day they would fire our public safety workers to save us all $60 dollars a year in taxes.
Call your board members to voice your displeasure with such poor management. 928-282-6800
we voted for two of the winners in the election and not one of them ever said to any of us about wanting to cut active firemen or paramedical workers and only talked about cutting the pork in politics; either there was a lot of pork, or you were blowing smoke up our arses, so what’s going on Charlie and Craig?
The residents of Sedona had better wake up and pay attention to this board of bullies. They have an RFP out for an audit, then proceeded to attempt bid-rigging at a public meeting of the audit committee. You should read this RFP for audit. No minimum qualifications are required, and they want the audit committee to develop a Mission Statement, a Vision Statement, a Values Statement, and a Strategic Plan. The audit is also tasked with evaluating the privatizing of EMS services. (again!!) Haven’t they stated they were not going to do that because it would be so bad for the community? They are also talking about out-sourcing all functions of the SFD other than fire and ems. They don’t seem to realize they will still have to pay the cost of dispatching, administration, finance and human resources, but the dollars will go out of this town, ie.. to Prescott for dispatching. That will effect our economy here in Sedona.
Watch the awarding of the RFP contract. There is a rumor that the highest bidder has an employee who is the wife of someone on the audit committee, and that out of 3 bids, the highest is at least twice the bids of the other two. Go to the meetings, people! You need to protect yourself from these guys.