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Shared Fire Protection Service Between
 A Mid-Sized Public University And Its Host Municipality

(Page 3 of 4)

The Rating Bureau

             In considering the provision of fire protection services to a campus like the University of Mississippi, situated in a town like Oxford, whose city limits completely surround the UM campus, there are two pieces of logic that seem obvious.   The first – that it makes common sense to have one consolidated department provide service to both the campus and the town – is absolutely correct.

            The second -- that since the town must provide a service all around the campus then it also should provide the service to the campus, at very little additional cost, or none – is incorrect.    This seems flawed, for all those fire stations and trucks and firefighters, after all, are just sitting there waiting to fight a fire, and there couldn’t be two fires, or three, at the same time.   Why should it cost more?

            The answer lies in the guidelines determined by the Rating Bureau, which is not a state agency but a state-mandated agency, subsidized by funding from private insurance companies but operating under the aegis of the Mississippi Insurance Commission.

             The Rating Bureau and its agents provide a necessary function.   They periodically review every fire department in the state.   Based on their criteria and complex formula of proper fire protection – population, land mass, number, type, size and condition of structures, relative to number of fire stations, number of firefighters manning those stations, distances between fire stations, average response time to service calls, communication structure, condition of equipment, number and location of fire hydrants, water pressure and capacity, to name just some – the Rating Bureau determines, for every municipality or governing entity, a rating between One and Ten.   Level One is excellent, Level Ten is failing.   Many cities are Level Fives.   Some are Fours or Sixes.   Fewer still are Threes or Sevens, and so on. The City of Oxford Fire Department has the same sorts of challenges that other Mississippi municipalities of a similar size have -- except that Oxford must provide fire protection to an additional 50% population, with a mere ten percent support in funding.

            The Rating Bureau deemed Oxford a Five on its most recent review, as it has for many years.   It has warned city officials for several recent years, however, that the city was in danger of slipping to a Level Six unless it made certain improvements.   This is why the City built Station # 3 in South Oxford.   It is why the City continually invests taxpayer money updating equipment and allocates dollars toward the professional development of its firefighters.   It is why the City has zoned certain ladder districts – areas of the city where buildings greater than three stories are allowed to be constructed.   These constant upgrades often come by recommendation of the Oxford Fire Chief and the Rating Bureau.

             City officials obviously want to provide adequate fire protection to its citizens out of due obligation to public safety, but this is not the only reason the city feels compelled to provide a level of quality protection, and to request fair funding from UM.    The Rating Bureau’s rating is not just a number so a city knows where it stands in comparison to other cities.   Insurance companies determine a given property’s level of liability based, in part, on the local municipality’s fire rating level; so, the property owner’s insurance costs are determined by that rating.   Ultimately, there is a quantifiable cost in addition to tax expenses associated with fire protection that the city must maintain.

             In its assessment of OFD and with particular regard to OFD’s coverage of the UM campus, the Rating Bureau considers any OFD response to a campus service call as a use of 75% of total OFD force.   Since one factor in the rating formula involves the amount of protection capacity, in the event of one service call, which remains prepared to respond to another call, the City’s rating is impacted by the many service calls to campus, which, in 2007, were 38% of all OFD calls.    Since 1992, the average percentage of all OFD service calls that have gone to the University is 44%.

            The Rating Bureau in recent years recommended that the City build an additional fire station in West Oxford, so the City is presently constructing Station # 4, at a cost of $1 million, on property donated by the University (leased for $1 a year) on its west edge of campus.   This location will enhance protection in the expanding commercial district of Oxford as well as the west side of campus, which is set to begin construction, in this same vicinity, of a research park on 500 acres of University property.     Staffing this station, which will benefit both the City and the University, will require a minimum of nine additional firefighters, six of whom have been hired in order to complete training by the time the station opens.   The City will keep Station # 2 operational, as the University begins construction this year on a large residential college nearby.

             At the time the Rating Bureau was pressing the City to make these improvements, and suggesting the City might fall to a Level Six rating, Bureau agents told City and OFD officials informally that, were OFD not required to provide protection to UM, OFD would be closer to a Level Four rating.   If the University determines to build its own fire department, it would be subject to the same rating criteria that OFD and any other fire department in the state is.   One can easily understand that it is impossible for the University to create a Level Five fire department without grossly exceeding the costs that the City has recently proposed.   Of the nearly forty university communities we contacted, only one provides its own fire protection – Clemson, a private university.

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