Rough Times Are Headed Our Way

Today my heart is breaking for Bill and for his fellow union officers and the entire St. Paul Fire Department. As I am sure every one of you who follow this blog will attest to - the economy is extremely brutal right now. This week Gov. Pawlenty came out with his proposed budget cuts. The City of Saint Paul is being hit hard - very hard. I know they aren't alone and I also know that the cuts could have been even worse. As Bill told me the other day - it is at about 80% of the worst case scenario they had been warned of. Literally this week I have seen Bill for about 1.5 hours since he left for work early Monday morning. When not working he has pretty much been in non-stop meetings crunching numbers and trying to work WITH the city to help determine how best to go about cutting the $7 million they have been told needs to be cut from the Fire Department budget.

The goal all along has been to try to avoid lay offs and cutting companies. Moves like this hurt on multiple levels for a Fire Department. Obviously first and foremost is the loss of jobs for these individuals. It is not likely that those laid off could just go and get another fire job somewhere else and is in fact nearly impossible. Many if not all of these individuals have families - wives, children, mortgages. Secondary to this is that running with less people will have a direct impact on the level of service the department can give to the city. In a profession where seconds and minutes count, longer response times can truly mean the difference between life and death, between saving a property from a fire and losing one to it. And lastly, the thing with the most impact to me, is that running short affects the safety of Bill's job overall. The chances of him being hurt or heaven forbid worse increase dramatically with less people. I have always prided myself on being able to bid him good bye each day and not worry that he wouldn't be coming back through the door the next day. I can't say I would be able to do that any longer.

I feel bad for Bill too because I can sense and hear the toll this is taking on him. He knew when he ran for Union treasurer that the job would be much like a marriage - you know for better or worse, for richer or poorer. But I don't think though that any of us could have really foreseen the magnitude of the impact the tanked economy would have on us all.

Tonight when I put the kids to bed and we say prayers we will send out extra blessings to the fire department and all the people being impacted by everything going on. I hope you will too.