Where is my tax money going?
Great question! We’re trying to figure that out as well…
Looking into both Robertson FPD and Hazelwood’s expenses, we are simply trying to understand how taxpayer money is being spent. After finding multiple anomalies in Robertson FPD finances, we turned our focus.
If Robertson FPD’s expenses are both reasonable and justified, then maybe Hazelwood should pony up and pay. If there are questions about RFPD’s spending, well then that is another story….and we have some questions!
Cost Comparisons
In 2020 alone, Hazelwood’s expenses for the fire department were $4.9M compared to Robertson FPD’s $9.1M. However, we shouldn’t compare a municipal fire department to a fire protection district. District’s inevitably cost more to operate. Maybe that extra $4.2M is necessary for Robertson to function.
So how do we determine if Robertson Fire Protection District’s spending is reasonable and justified? To examine this, we compared Robertson’s expenditures and expenses to the 23 other career fire protection districts in St. Louis County.
Cost per Call & Operating Cost per Call
Fire protection districts are in the business of calls…they receive tax money to preform public safety in the form of responding to an emergency call. There are other responsibilities, yes, but this is the main business model.
A powerful metric in determining the relative cost of performing emergency service is to analyze the total expenditures (the day-to-day cost plus debt & capitol) and the total expenses (the day-to-day operating cost) compared to the number of emergency incidents, or “calls” a district receives in a year.
The more calls a district receives the higher fuel consumption, medical supplies, turnout gear, as well as maintenance and replacement of vehicles, equipment, etc.
Highest Cost per Call (Total Expenditures/Total Calls): from 2016 to 2020 of the 23 career fire protections districts, on average Robertson FPD had the highest cost per call in St. Louis County at $3633.02 (x̄=$2145.57, M=$2012.28, SD=$795.66).
Highest Operating Cost per Call (Total Expenses/Total Calls): Robertson FPD also had the highest Operating Cost per Call in the county with an averaged of $3721.97 per emergency call (x̄=$1992.47, M=$2015.99, SD=$774.23) for the years 2016 to 2020.
There is NO correlation between the number of firehouses in a district and the cost per call (r=0.128) or the operating cost per call (r=0.119), nor the population and the cost per resident (r=-0.065) or operating cost per resident (r=-0.053).
No matter how you slice it, Robertson FPD is the most expensive fire protection district in St. Louis County!
Whether you are looking expenses or expenditures, from 2016 to 2020, compared to all other fire protection districts, it costs $1608.48 more for Robertson FPD to respond to an emergency call.
Why is Robertson FPD so expensive?
These high expenditures and expenses simply do not make sense.
For instance, compare Valley Park FPD:
two firehouses, just like Robertson FPD
roughly the same average grand assessed valuation in 2016-2020; $288M to Robertson’s $332M (both excludes TIF valuation).
Takes the same average number of calls per year at 2231 to Robertson’s 2455 calls.
Valley Park’s operating cost per call is $1679.83…WHY is Robertson’s operating cost per call $2042.14 higher at $3721.97!?
You are probably asking yourself, is there something special about Robertson FPD where higher spending is necessary? We tried to look into this.
Average amount of Commercial Business in the area: As of 2020 Robertson had the 9th highest assessed value of commercial property (including TIF property) among the 23 career districts in St. Louis County, meaning the district is about average for the amount of commercial property contained within a district. Florissant Valley FPD was 8th.
Not due to excessive support to businesses: RFPD has previously claimed more money is necessary to care for business parks such as the Mill’s Mall. Excluding residential and traffic calls, in 2020 only 43% of their calls were to businesses, hotels, gas stations, churches, etc. By comparison, 34% of the Hazelwood Fire Department calls fell into this category with total expenses of $4.9M compared to Robertson’s $9.1M. A 9% difference cannot account for a $4.2M difference. In fact 44% of Valley Park FPD calls were commercial in 2020 with expenses of $4.7M. (Note: prior call percentages provided did not include apartments).
Has nothing to do with Tax Increment Financing (TIFs): Robertson has claimed for years they are hurting financially from TIFs, despite their Grand Total Assessed valuation without the TIFs being $332M (2016-2020). TIFs result in less tax revenue, which has nothing to do with how much money a district chooses to spend. Expenditures and TIFs in this case are unrelated.
Not a result of high call volume: Well….let’s look at the numbers below!
Calls per Firehouse per Year
There are two possible ways to determine how busy a fire protection district is (1) by the average number of calls the district receives as a whole and (2) the average number of calls per firehouse within the district.
However, just looking at the call numbers a district takes does not account for the districts size, such as square miles covered and number of firehouses. This is why looking at the number of calls per firehouse per year is the best way to determine how “busy” a fire district is.
Takeaways:
Busiest FPDs: Northeast Ambulance is without a doubt the busiest FPD in St. Louis County taking an average of 7318 calls per firehouse per year, followed by Florissant Valley who takes 3814 calls per firehouse per year.
RFPD is on the slower side: Robertson FPD takes an average of 1227 calls per firehouse making them the 18th busiest district in the County, or in other words…the 6th slowest fire protection district.
This means, Robertson FPD’s high cost per call & operating cost per call is not the result of high call volume.
Disclaimer: These statistics are not meant to diminish the hard work of any firefighter within any district. Public safety is a difficult job, and all first responders should be fully compensated for their hard work. This is only to point out the disconnect between Robertson FPD’s spending and the actual resources being consumed for the purposes of public safety.
Cost per Resident
Another way to analyze expenditures and expenses is how they relate to the number of residents the fire protection district serves.
There is a strong positive correlation between the residential population within the district and the number of calls received per year (r=0.892). In theory more residents should mean more calls, which means more expenses.
Highest Cost per Resident (Total Expenditures/District Population): Excluding Robertson, the average cost per resident in St. Louis County from 2016 to 2020 was $245, ranging from $125 to $518. Robertson FPD’s has the highest cost per resident averaged over 5 years at $1574 per resident.
Highest Operating Cost per Resident (Total Expenses/District Population): During this same time period, Robertson FPD had the highest operating cost per resident at $1613, with the average operating cost per resident (excluding Robertson FPD) was $223 ranging from $113 to $412.
Why is Robertson Fire Protection District so out of line with other districts’ cost per resident?
Could it be due to the low population size of the district? ANSWER: NO
One could make the argument that Robertson FPD’s cost per resident is higher due to its small population size and the cost of EMS and fire protection service is a necessary cost no matter the population size. However, if you were to theoretically increase Robertson’s population size to the third lowest, 15,000 residents, they still come out as the highest operating cost per resident at an average of $608 per year.
By comparison Metro North FPD has a residential population of about 15,000 and take roughly the same average amount of calls per firehouse as Robertson FPD, 1251 calls per year to Robertson’s 1227. Metro North’s Operating cost per resident per year is $178…nowhere near $608.
IN FACT: Robertson would need a population size of 40,912 residents to hit the average Operating cost per resident of $223 and would need 22,144 more residents to meet Maryland Heights as the second highest cost per resident at $412.
Could it be due to Robertson Daytime population? ANSWER: NO
Robertson FPD has been confronted with this high cost per resident statistic before and claims it has a daytime population of 45,000 and has been unable to explain where this number came from. This would require 40,000 workers commuting to Robertson FPD District during the day. However, Census data does not back this up.
According to Census Data from 2006 to 2010, the estimated population of Hazelwood and Bridgeton increased by 11,906 and 19,548 during the day, giving a total daytime population increase of 31,454 for both Cities. Not only is this roughly 10,000 people short of Robertson’s claimed 40,000 daytime population increase, Robertson FPD only services a small portion of both Hazelwood and Bridgeton. This means only a fraction of this daytime population increase actually occurs within the District.
While there has been some industrial growth since 2010, both Cities’ populations have remained relatively unchanged and with airport buy-out in 2008 a daytime population of 45,000 seems nearly impossible.
IN FACT: Based on these numbers, Robertson daytime population is probably somewhere between 15,000 to maybe 20,000.
Additionally, we requested the daytime population from the other fire protection districts in St. Louis County, most of them told us this is not a metric districts track.
Source: “Table 3. Commuter-Adjusted Daytime Population: Places.” Commuter-Adjusted Population Estimates: ACS 2006-10, United States Census Bureau, 2010, https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2010/demo/mckenzie-01.html, December 25th, 2021.
Once you look deeper into Robertson’s spending, even more questions begin to arise…
Robertson FPD’s spending on internet, cable, cell phone service, and fuel, as well as the district’s purchasing and sales of district vehicles and equipment raises many questions about these high operating costs.
Citizens to Save Hazelwood & Fire Services have sent multiple open records requests to understand the reasonableness of these expenses. We are still waiting for these request to completely be fulfilled.