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Pflugerville on Fire
Our first episode drops August 31! This podcast mini-series will inform you about the initiative to defund the Pflugerville Fire Department. Listen on all major podcasting platforms. Subscribe to get the latest episodes. We have some great guests lined up!
Pflugerville on Fire
The Fight to Save Pflugerville Fire Services with PFD Chief, Nick Perkins
How would you feel if your community’s fire department lost 40% of its funding overnight? On this episode of Pflugerville on Fire, we sit down with Chief Nick Perkins to discuss the dire consequences of abolishing the sales tax revenue that sustains the Pflugerville Fire Department. Chief Perkins shares his candid thoughts on how laying off 133 firefighters and closing multiple fire stations would drastically increase response times and compromise emergency services. This isn't just about numbers; it’s about lives and property at stake.
We also take a closer look at Travis County ESD 2's financial structure and why the 2014 sales tax measure is so critical. Through vivid accounts, including a recent brush fire, we illustrate how defunding would severely impact firefighter safety, training programs, and essential services like advanced life support and ambulance services. Chief Perkins clears up common misconceptions and highlights the cost-efficiency and transparency of the department compared to similar fire departments in central Texas.
Learn more about the department's ISO Rating that keeps commercial and some homeowner's insurance rates low.
Read the study published by the Perryman Group on the economic benefits & potential cost savings from Emergency Services Districts.
Learn the facts on the Pflugerville Fire Department's website.
Box alarm in ESD2 box.
Chief Perkins:And so what we know about fires. It doubles in size about every minute, and so the longer it takes to get to a fire, the bigger it gets and the longer it's gonna take for us to bring it under control, Poses more risk to the residents, more property damage and makes the firefighters have to work in a less safe environment for a longer period of time. You know, during the winter storm there were a lot of government agencies that failed.
Chris Wolff:Failed, dropped the ball.
Chief Perkins:This agency did not. We rose to an incredible crisis and the firefighters ran a thousand calls in that week Incredible. And so that was because of a lot of planning under the thought processes and the mechanisms that I'm describing here.
Chris Wolff:Welcome to Pflugerville on Fire. I'm your host, Chris Wolff., We We've got a great episode with Chief of the Pflugerville Fire Department, Nick Perkins. In this episode we're going to get into the impact to the fire department and the response times in the community if the sales tax gets repealed. We'll also talk about reserves, get deep into the budget and how emergency services budgets differ from other government agencies. Then we're going to compare the Pflugerville Fire Department to other departments in the region and get a gauge on whether our department is as efficient and as effective as people claim.
Chris Wolff:A little bit about Chief Perkins. He joined the Pflugerville Fire Department in 1998. He moved up the ranks from a firefighter to a shift commander, to the chief of the training division, became the assistant chief and finally the chief of the department in 2021. It was Nick Perkins' time in the training division that really set Pflugerville apart. It was Nick Perkins' time in the training division that really set Pflugerville apart. In his time there at the training division he instituted a robust and progressive training program. That was one of the big reasons that I joined the department. He has a master's degree in public administration and he teaches fire technology at the college level.
Chris Wolff:Having worked for Chief Perkins. I can tell you a couple of things. Number one he leads from the front. He's calm in chaos and he tells it like it is, but probably most importantly is that he cares. He certainly has a respect to the firefighters and is a voice to be considered in this issue. So enjoy this interview with Chief of the Fire Department, nick Perkins. All right, welcome to the podcast, chief Perkins. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Chief Perkins:Yeah, thanks, happy to be here.
Chris Wolff:All right, we're going to dive right into it. Our listeners are aware that there's an initiative on the ballot to remove sales tax revenue from the fire department. What can residents expect their fire department to look like if the sales tax is repealed?
Chief Perkins:So if we were to lose roughly 40% of our revenue, you would see a similar reduction in the resources and the capability of the fire department. So what that looks like is reducing 219 positions from the fire department. That takes into account planned positions for next year, but we would be laying off at least 133 people Wow. So that would affect our ability to staff fire trucks and to operate out of fire stations. So we would be looking at closing at least three fire stations, one of the units at station eight, so you know we can count on at least four of our fire stations not operating the way they do today.
Chris Wolff:Count on at least four of our fire stations not operating the way they do today. So personally I've seen. You know, we've recently had some firefighters roll out and I've heard kind of grumblings from the guys. As the chief of the department, are you aware of the impact that struggles like this has on the morale of your firefighters?
Chief Perkins:Yeah, so we, you know we do exit interviews when people leave and I think part of being a firefighter. One of the advantages that attracts people to this job is stability, Because firefighting and EMS are essential services in a community and typically have a lot of support. And working in an environment where we could lose half of our funding and we'd be forced to do layoffs, I don't think it's helpful to recruiting and retention. I don't think it's good for that, my gosh.
Chris Wolff:So what's that going to do then to the department response times rating-wise?
Chief Perkins:Yeah, so currently we have a response time in most areas that's under 10 minutes eight minutes in most areas and so cutting our resources in half, closing fire stations would bring response times to 20 minutes, 40 minutes to an hour in some areas, and so obviously that affects our ability to respond to emergencies, to keep fire small, to help people who are having life-threatening medical situations, but also our ISO rating would be affected. So currently we have an ISO 1, which is heavily rated on your response time, and we would be going to 10 in some areas, and so that can be an insurance increase for some people of up to 50%, 30% for commercial property owners and some homeowners. Wow.
Chris Wolff:So, chief, when you came over here to the show, you were actually all decked out. Where had you just come from?
Chief Perkins:Yeah, I just came from a brush fire we had out east of town and so you know we had about 10 acres burning out there and so we had a pretty good fire. We had, I think, five brush trucks, four engines and several command staff units and had at least a unit from Austin Fire Department and I think another unit from Mainer Fire Department helping us.
Chris Wolff:So that's a tremendous amount of resources and this is a great example. So, using that what just happened as an example, what will response look like if this measure passes and the defund fire department gets defunded?
Chief Perkins:Yeah, so, like on an incident like that where we were able to send all of those resources very quickly, get on that firewall. It's smaller and allows us to bring it under control. We really had that fire under control in about an hour. So what we would be forced with is fighting a fire like that with half the resources and taking longer time to get there. And so what we know about fire is it doubles in size about every minute, and so the longer it takes to get to a fire, the bigger it gets and the longer it's going to take for us to bring it under control, poses more risk to the residents, more property damage and makes the firefighters have to work in a less safe environment for a longer period of time.
Chris Wolff:Wow, so a lot of our listeners may not be aware that we actually run a high school fire and EMS program. We also run a cadet program and train. The department trains its own paramedics. How would this impact those programs?
Chief Perkins:All of those programs would be impacted. So most of them we would not be able to operate the way we do today. So we would not have the resources to support the high school program, we would not have the resources to support a cadet program. You know, really, at that point our effort would be just meeting our state-mandated training requirements for the firefighters that are out on the street.
Chris Wolff:Wow, that's a scary thing to think about for someone who joined the department because of the training. That's wild. So let's ask the question then. All of this has to do with funding. How does Travis County ESD 2 compare financially with other fire departments that are similar size and scope?
Chief Perkins:So remember Travis County ESD 2, also known as the Pflugerville Fire Department. We are an ESD and so we collect funding in a few areas. We get property tax, which is limited at 10 cents per ad valorem, so that's 10 cents per $100 of property valuation and we're capped, can't go any more than 10 cents. Then we also collect a half cent sales tax across the entire district. That was from an election in 2001,. The voters passed that. And then we collect an additional half cent in the Pflugerville ETJ and areas outside the Wells Branch Library District. That voters granted in 2014. And so then we also have fees. So we have fire marshal fees and we have EMS fees, and so you combine all those together and that's what makes up our budget. And so we have about a $43 million operating budget. And when you compare us to municipal services and you look at it from a property tax perspective, what we see is most fire departments operating between about 26 cents and 31 cents. So Georgetown Fire Department, that's a comparable fire department in terms of size and the population they serve. They also provide fire-based EMS. They're at 31 cents, and so you don't have to take my word for it.
Chief Perkins:An economist, ray Perryman, studied ESDs across the state, and he found two things. One he found that ESDs contribute to the local economic environment. In Texas ESDs protect about 10 million people, about a third of the state. You can't have a thriving economy if it's not safe, and so that's why you need emergency service districts. But the other thing he found is he specifically studied ESD operations and cost versus municipal fire departments cost and operations and what he found overwhelmingly is that ESDs are more efficient. And so, specifically, one of the regions he studied was Central Texas. We were a part of that study and included in that, and we outperformed every municipality in Central Texas. Only one department was more efficient than us, and that's the Hutto Fire Department Great fire department but they don't provide ambulance or ALS service, wow.
Chris Wolff:So I hear you say that the Pflugerville Fire Department is efficient and you compared it to Georgetown, and so just to clarify for the listeners at home Pflugerville provides similar service for less money, correct? Wow, all right, well, that's an important thing to note. When all of this is based on dollars and cents and listeners and voters are going to hear a lot, they're going to be told that the initiative is a refund, not a defund, and this goes back to that 2014 sales tax to fund advanced life support for the department. So my question is is advanced life support or ALS and ambulance transport the same thing, and should residents be refunded, since the department no longer provides transport in the city?
Chief Perkins:That's a good question. So what this measure aims to do is to remove, abolish the half cent we collect in the city. That was passed in 2001. So that had nothing to do with advanced life support, so that wouldn't make sense in terms of the refund, and the only reason we've been able to be an effective fire department is because of sales tax On the 2014 election. That was collected outside the city of Pflugerville and was granted by those voters in 2014 to fund training firefighters to be paramedics, and we've done that. We've trained over 53 paramedics since that time.
Chief Perkins:We, to this day, still provide advanced life support services to those areas and we provide ambulance service to those areas with the help of ESD-17 in Travis County. And then the other thing that we've been able to do is because we provide those resources out of ALS-equipped fire stations Stations 5, stations 3, and really Station 6. Now, on about a fourth of the calls in Pflugerville, there is an ESD2 paramedic on those calls, and so we are delivering ALS services to some capacity on, like I said, at least a quarter of those calls in Pflugerville, and so that's significant because if you're running a cardiac arrest with the for-profit provider, there's usually only one paramedic on that ambulance, and so having another paramedic on scene to help is a good thing. And then we've also seen many cases where the ESD2 paramedic is able to assist with a procedure that the for-profit provider can't do, it's not as capable as doing, and so our folks step in. And then certainly we've seen where we don't have one of our ALS providers on scene, where a patient has actually been killed by the for-profit provider.
Chris Wolff:Right, yeah, what a shame. That's wild. So voters will hear that you could have run ambulances if you had wanted to. What do you have to say about that?
Chief Perkins:Well, for that immediate year where COVID happened and sales tax dipped and then we saw surplus. We could have maybe done it for another year, but what that would have looked like is we would have delayed building fire stations, adding firefighters and addressing the gaps in the upcoming fire mission needs Would have required us to run our paramedics and our ambulances to the max, to the extreme. Currently, and even at that time, we run more calls than any ESD in Travis-Williamson or Hayes County.
Chris Wolff:Travis-Williamson or Hayes County Correct. Pflugerville Fire Department runs the most of any ESD. And Travis Williamson or Hayes County Travis Williamson or Hayes County Correct. Pflugerville fire department runs the most of the ESDs Correct, wow.
Chief Perkins:And so my point in saying that and you know this, we're already working you guys really hard and you're human, you guys are amazing and you're you're superhuman. You did you guys have limits and we run into safety problems, we run into mental health problems when we don't manage these things correctly. And so, to answer your question, yeah, maybe we could have run it for another year and putting all those things on hold, running you guys into overtime, but for sure, as we sit today, we would not have been able to do all of that as we sit today, having added all the resources and addressed the gaps that we had and that we've been looking at within the fire mission as well.
Chris Wolff:Yeah, it seems like. Was that something that ESDs are required to do? Provide ambulance transport? Is that something that is an add-on?
Chief Perkins:Yeah, so it's not mandated that ESDs do that. Again, we're a fire department. You know, what we've been seeing through the majority of my career was the previous ambulance model, which was a rural kind of ambulance model. It's typically a rural area that contracts with a city to provide the areas outside. That no longer was sustainable and we began to see that system get stressed, those response times grow. And we began to see that system get stressed, those response times grow. And that's where we stepped in. And the initial plan was to step in to get paramedics on the fire trucks. That way we could get that care, that ALS care, delivered quicker while we were waiting for the ambulance.
Chief Perkins:Well, in the process of adding paramedics, you know, talking with other partners the county and the city at the time, talking with other partners the county and the city at the time is, like you know, we think we can help with this problem by staffing some ambulances to supplement the existing service and then, ultimately, once we started running, ambulances we were left by ourselves, and so you know that was never the original, that was never the original plan and, at the end of the day, the model and the way we were operating, taking into account the four fire stations that we've opened during that time, the almost 150 firefighters that we've hired in that time, the additional apparatus, fire trucks, equipment, we would not have been able to do all that under the current model.
Chris Wolff:You're saying it was the right financial plan.
Chief Perkins:We were at $0.10 when we were having this discussion. We were at our max rate. Now, granted, a number of things happened. We had a pandemic where we saw our sales tax have some of the most underperforming months we'd ever seen in the history of sales tax collection. And then we saw the federal government introduce the stimulus packages and concepts something I'd never seen in my lifetime.
Chief Perkins:I don't know about y'all and so then we saw overperformance from sales tax. And then, of course, we saw the following inflation and kind of those reactions. So for us, that's fire trucks increasing by 30%, ambulances increasing by 40%, staff and labor costs exceedingly costly. And here we are today with property values beginning to decline and level out, and we are in fact looking back at those forecasts. We are going to be back at 10 cents in those forecasts, which is where all this started. And so did it happen in the exact minute and day when we said it would no, and I don't think that's fair or realistic to expect someone to be able to predict the future to that degree of certainty. But we are approaching what we thought we would approach At the end of the day, what you did, what you're saying, was necessary.
Chief Perkins:The decisions the board made were the right calls. And so here we are. We now have ESD 17 assisting us with funding, as is Travis County, and we've identified a model that allows us to deliver on the services that we are responsible for in the community and also be able to compensate and take care of the firefighters who are providing the service.
Chris Wolff:Chief, your department has some transparency stars, meaning that people can look on and see what it is, and if anyone does a little bit of homework, they're going to see millions of dollars sitting in your bank. Can you talk about that and then can you compare that to other departments? Yeah, that's a good question.
Chief Perkins:So that's correct. We have three transparency stars from the Texas Comptroller, and so when you look on our website, there is an overwhelming amount of information available on our finances there, and I challenge you to go to another government with that level of transparency and availability, with the documents we provide, and that's why we've been recognized for it. And so to your question we do have a reserve fund, and so I'll talk a little bit about reserves. You know, for us as an ESD, we have limited abilities to offset unplanned costs, and so what I mean by that is a disaster comes in, say I don't know, a pandemic, a winter storm, a really rough wildfire season. These are not hypothetical, right?
Chris Wolff:These are things that have happened.
Chief Perkins:These are things we've dealt with the last five years, and so these things will bring extraordinary costs, and it's typically an overtime and equipment costs to the operation, and so we have to plan for that. The other thing is you could have a fire truck wrecked and you've got to replace that, and it doesn't work the way you think it works in insurance, and you could be out having to buy and put out significant money for a fire truck, and we've had that happen. We've had a person crash into a fire truck and total one of our fire engines. So you have to plan. My point in all this is you have to plan for disasters, and so that's the purpose of having your reserve, and you also want to plan for economic downturn, so again you could have a period where your sales tax plummets.
Chris Wolff:So yeah, you got this reserve. Is it a lot?
Chief Perkins:We do. So what we try to do is operate at about six months of our operating costs for the year. And so with a $43 million budget, you're looking at about $26 year. And so you know, with a $43 million budget, you know you're looking at about $26 million. And so when we compare ourselves to other ESDs, because we're aware of the scrutiny that can come upon having money in the bank, you know people would say, hey, just, you know, spend that money. But we're aware of that scrutiny. So we studied this pretty heavily and again, when you compare us to other ESDs, proportionally we have one of the lowest reserves by proportion. Right, most ESDs are carrying about 100% of their operating costs for the year and a lot of that you see in federal. You know that's kind of like some real common in federal programs. And so for us we're at six months programs and so for us we're at six months.
Chief Perkins:And the other huge thing about reserves, outside of the ability to looking at as a risk management tool, the ability to kind of navigate unplanned events and disasters, is when we go to the capital markets and we go to do big loans, like when we go to do a loan for a fire station and a training field, like we're doing right now the bank looks. One of the primary criteria they look at is they look we're doing right now the bank looks. One of the primary criteria they look at is they look at the money you have in the bank and so by having an adequate amount of reserves, you can capitalize on a really good interest rate, and that literally saves the community hundreds of thousands of dollars with loans, and so that's another reason why you need to have the reserve. But I think you know the best analogy that when people say well, you know, just use your reserve, just spend your savings account Right.
Chris Wolff:Hey, you got millions sitting in there, just tap into it, yeah.
Chief Perkins:So what we like. The analogy I like to use is it's kind of like with you and your personal finances and your savings account and your mortgage payment right, so that mortgage payment comes every month, and it will come every month for as long as you live in that house and so, or for 30 years and so, but you could use your savings account to pay your mortgage payment. You could do that. Eventually, you will not have any money in the savings and you will have to pay that mortgage payment, and then what happens when your air condition breaks? What happens when the roof goes out? You won't have a savings account anymore, and so that's just not good governance, that's not responsible government and that's not how we plan for the future to protect a community with the responsibility that we have.
Chris Wolff:And your organization is a little bit different than, say, like public works or parks and recs.
Chief Perkins:Yeah, I think well, no disrespect to those people, the work they do is amazing and they are absolutely vital and critical. But what you see in a city, some of the options they have to kind of offset costs is they can shut the library down. They can tell the utility folks hey, we're not going to mow Monday through Thursday, we're only going to mow on Fridays, and again we can close the pools. We don't have those options and typically during disasters and turning tough times, we actually go into overtime.
Chief Perkins:We have to work harder. We have to spend more money to mitigate and bring disasters under control. So it's just not an apples to apples comparison. When you look at a city and pertaining to ESD and again going back to, we have limited options. A city can issue debt, sometimes non-voter approved debt. We've seen that here locally. We can't do that, we don't have the ability to do that. So we have to be very careful and we have to be very safe, and that's why you see our board. They make very conservative decisions because what we don't ever want to happen is we don't ever want to come up short. We don't want to fail the community. During the winter storm, there were a lot of government agencies that failed. This agency did not. We rose to an incredible crisis and the firefighters ran a thousand calls in that week, and so that was because of of a lot of planning under the thought processes and the mechanisms that I'm describing here. That's, that's what it gets you.
Chris Wolff:I personally was on an extra truck that we don't normally run, that was equipped with snow chains and all the equipment that we needed in case of something like that. So, chief. So, how much money, if any, can residents save if they vote yes to repeal the sales tax and take it away to defund the fire department?
Chief Perkins:So that would temporarily remove the sales tax that we collect.
Chief Perkins:I saw the city put on their agenda last week to call an election for the creation of a municipal development district that would seek to capture that of a municipal development district that would seek to capture that.
Chief Perkins:So if we were to lose the sales tax, it's reasonable that another government would try to capture that. So the sales tax that you pay when you go to buy something it won't go away, so somebody will be collecting that, so there's no savings there. And then, in terms of property tax, again, remember, we're capped at 10 cents. We're currently just below 8 cents and, as I was explaining to you, with the decline in house values and everything that property values and everything that we've got to keep up with, we're going to be back at 10 cents and so the property taxes are going to increase. If the city were, if this measure was successful and the city were to gain this funding and as the petitioners have put on their website and the spokesperson said that they would fund EMS and even a fire department well, they would have infrastructure needs, they'd have to build facilities, they'd have to buy apparatus, they'd have to hire people, and so that would be a duplication of existing infrastructure that already exists, and so that would be long-term cost to the community.
Chris Wolff:So you already said the ISO rating is going to increase insurance prices and we did some checking here on the show. We got one insurance company, Lloyd's, that said it would be at least 33% for a residential property.
Chris Wolff:I believe that's commercial. Yeah, so all right, I'm sure it's going to hit residential as well. We just don't know exactly how much it's going. Okay, yeah, so all right, I'm sure it's going to hit residential as well. We just don't know exactly how much it's going to be. And then you said that the property tax rate is going to go up because you guys need to recoup that money somehow, and then, finally, the city is going to have to pull debt in order to create the infrastructure to backfill that program.
Chief Perkins:Yeah, to build facilities and to buy trucks and equipment, All of that. We're talking millions and millions of dollars.
Chris Wolff:All this for money. That is, sales tax, where you're paying no matter what.
Chief Perkins:Correct, assuming another government goes after it and is successful in getting it.
Chris Wolff:Wow, Well, that is wild stuff. Chief, Thank you so much for coming on the show. I think you did a great job explaining that and breaking it down. Really appreciate your time.
Chief Perkins:Yeah, thanks for having me on, and happy to do so.
Chris Wolff:Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate you doing your part to get the information. In our country, both nationally and locally. There's so many divisive issues that bring us apart, and one of the results of that is people have less trust in their governmental institutions. One of those governmental institutions that still maintains a high level of trust with people is the fire service in this country, and in that vein, I think it's very important to hear from our fire service leaders speaking directly to you, the listener, so we can clear some of this stuff up. If you enjoyed the show, please like and subscribe. You can send us a message. We'd love to hear from you. Tell us if you liked it, tell us if you've got other questions that you'd like us to check out, and then also in the show notes we have a link to the Perryman study talking about the ESDs. Very good information there, and if you'd like to get involved, please do us a favor. Share this episode with your friends and neighbors so that they can become more informed. I think a lot of this mistrust comes from misinformation and misunderstanding. The more we can clear this up, the better.
Chris Wolff:In the next episode we're going to be talking to firefighter paramedic Cody Smith. Cody's life changed dramatically on the night of January 6, 2023, in the back of a for-profit ambulance, when Cody witnessed as a for-profit paramedic was responsible for the death of one of our Pflugerville citizens. Obviously, this had a huge impact on Cody and really changed the trajectory of his life. Cody attended the Pflugerville Fire Department Paramedic School with the commitment of never seeing anything like that happen again. We'll get his perspective on what he saw that night, how it impacted him, and we'll talk about the paramedic program. We'll discuss why it's received some scrutiny from the community and we'll talk about what makes it different, as well as its tenuous future should the sales tax become abolished. All that and more so tune in to the next episode of Pflugerville on fire.
