AGA TOPICS Newsletter

Ohio Fire Department Outlines its Successes, Challenges in Report to Citizens

The Beavercreek Township Fire Department in Greene County, Ohio, has issued a four-page report that briefly outlines the department’s finances, successes and challenges in the last fiscal year.

The department’s “2008 Annual Report to Residents” is the latest Citizen-Centric Report that follows the guidelines recommended by AGA to bring greater transparency to government services. The Beavercreek Township Fire Department, with issuance of its report, joins a growing list of states, local governments and federal agencies that are using AGA’s Citizen-Centric Reporting format as a means to communicate financial and performance information to its constituents. AGA also offers a Certificate of Excellence in Citizen-Centric Reporting for governmental entities that prepare and distribute exceptional reports.

Fire Chief David VandenBos spoke with AGA about his experience:

How did you hear about Citizen-Centric Reports? The former Fire Chief Mark Thomas (now retired) gave me a copy of an article written by AGA Executive Director Relmond Van Daniker, DBA, CPA, in American City & County Magazine that described the basic concept and led me to AGA.

Why produce the report? Who made the decision to go ahead? Carol Graff, President of the Board of Township Trustees, requested an annual report from the fire department. I was assigned the project as the deputy chief of Administration. After reading about the Citizen-Centric model I decided to use it as the basis for our annual report.

Who was involved in gathering the information? I gathered all the information for the project. We have two primary records systems: one for fiscal data and the other for activity data. I used those along with a few common sources—the census, county auditor information, for example—to create the report.

How did you decide on what information to include? I followed the general model provided on AGA’s website and tailored it to our department. I was impressed by the scalability of the model—it could be used for statewide reporting down to our single, local government department level. Based upon your examples, I tried to provide a general overview of our agency and answer the questions I get asked most often when speaking with folks in our community. The report includes successes for Fiscal Year 2008: purchasing a new road rescue medic vehicle and five acres of land to replace one of our stations, for example. The challenges include increasing calls for service, an aging fleet of vehicles and too much reliance on a five-year levy for our funding. The report also includes data on the average number of service calls in 2008 (16), percentage of patients transported to the hospital after evaluation by our paramedics (86 percent) and the average emergency response time (5.4 minutes).

Who had final approval? I had approval over the final format and general content. I provided a draft copy to our Board of Township Trustees for final review and incorporated their comments and modifications into the final draft.

Where did you distribute the report? The report was distributed individually at our annual Popcorn Festival to anyone who wanted a copy. Additionally, it was distributed as a centerfold insert in our community newsletter that is mailed to every residence in the Township. Finally, it is available on our website and hard copies are available at fire administration. Our 2009 report will also be offered at the local library.

How long did It take? Total time for the first report was about 80 hours over the course of about two months. This included format/layout, data collection and copy writing. I’m hoping that the 2009 version takes less than half of the time. The format/layout will remain fundamentally the same and most major metrics will be updated versions of the same.

What have your heard from citizens, other government officials now that it is completed? What value has it brought? There has not been much feedback. I received positive comments from the Board of Township Trustees and from the occasional citizen, but nothing significant, although I haven’t received any negative comments. I don’t have a good quantitative measure of its value, but I believe that getting this amount of information out to our communities will pay long-term dividends. Circumstantially, about three months after this was widely circulated, we passed a major funding measure with strong community support. I would guess that it had a positive impact on the election results.

Is this a process you would encourage other governments to go through? Why or why not? Absolutely, for three reasons. First, following the Citizen-Centric format provides a recognized standard for conveying information. It’s much easier to read than the CAFR and PAFR, but it’s similar in that it follows an established format, which builds credibility in the report and is extremely valuable in the current political/economic environment for proving transparency. Second, any information shared with constituents is valuable, but this format really emphasizes readability and relevance over jargon and tables of numbers. Third, we have internal metrics that are used for evaluating performance, but didn’t really have a consideration of how to show our results to the community, our paying customers. This format provided a forum for working to develop meaningful measures that can be understood and appreciated by our citizens.