City "Burns" Through Your Money at April 14 City Council Meeting - Bring Your Hot Dogs and Marshmallows!

The City is wasting no time in spending your tax dollars on the newly established independent Emergency Medical Services for Georgetown.  First on the agenda will be the approval to spend $340,000 for the purchase of 2 additional Dodge 4500-Diesel transitional response vehicles(TRVs), AKA ambulances, from a Dallas based dealer.  Next up, the Council will amend the 2014/2015 budget by increasing it $1,482,000 to pay for the new EMS service(note the $340K is included in the $1482K).  Of course, this also includes $125,000 for the salaries and benefits for 6 new paramedics for the last 3 months of the fiscal year.  These costs will go on forever, escalated by competitiveness and inflation.

The growth in the Fire Department has been "eye watering", even before taking over the entire responsibility for EMS.  In 2005, the FD staff consisted of 59 people, in 2015 the staff has grown to 103.  That is a compound annual growth rate of 5.73% over 10 years.  Most notable is where the staff growth has occurred; 3 people in administration in 2005 and 10 people in administration in 2015.  Looks like administrative "bloat"!

The FD budget has grown at a 10.32% compound annual rate over the past 10 years.  This far exceeds the prudent rate of population growth + inflation(3.59%+2.3%).

One of the justifications for assuming responsibility for EMS in Georgetown was the "rapid population growth".  This canard has been repeated in the various news publications around the area without reservation or fact checking.  It is easily calculable from publicly available sources, including the City, that the population growth rate is 3.59% compounded annually over the last 10 years.  For comparison, Williamson County has grown at a 4.9% annual rate.  Thus, one can observe that the County is growing at a 36% faster rate than Georgetown.  So yes, our city is growing, but, not at an extraordinary rate.

Stayed tuned for spending additional money over the coming years as more TRVs and paramedics are needed to reduce response times, improve deployment efficiency, and improve service.