Rural Fire Department Needs Grass Truck: The Need to Cut Red Tape

Forms are forms and we love forms but sometimes forms get in the way of getting things done (I'm starting to form an opinion on too many forms. 😏 ). I'm the type of person who is often buried in paperwork and have become accustomed to it as a way of life. The problem is that forms are awesome when they work but they also create a lot of red tape that makes basics cumbersome. We are in the need of a new and/or in great shape used grass truck for one of our fire departments. The problem is that we aren't sure where we can get the money and when we find places that may have resources we often find there are also lots of other applicants and lots paperwork needed; often more than volunteer departments can handle without professional grant writers.😬

Cutting the Red Tape.....

Red tape is a concept where everything is bogged down in bureaucratic "necessities" that don't reflect the realities of the lives we live. They are designed to create paper trails and manage complex systems but aren't necessarily designed to get the work done in an efficient manner. Thus there is a balance between having the right information you need and ensuring that programs are effective and efficient. 

According to the article, ' Assessment: Do You Know How Bureaucratic Your Organization Is? ' in the Harvard Business Review the cost of bureaucracy costs the U.S. $3 trillion dollars a year and costs OECD countries $9 trillion. The article indicates that waste often falls into the follow categories (Hamel & Zanini, 2017, para 4): 

-Bloat: too many managers, administrators, and management layers
-Friction: too much busywork that slows down decision making
-Insularity: too much time spent on internal issues
-Disempowerment: too many constraints on autonomy
-Risk Aversion: too many barriers to risk taking
-Inertia: too many impediments to proactive change
-Politics: too much energy devoted to gaining power and influence

Thinking through some of the ways we can reduce government bureaucracy is to streamline operations and in turn develop more human to human contact. While online  forms still work in this situation there should be a human guide readily available. Small fire departments will struggle with the ability to navigate the complex web of paperwork and will often be pushed out by other departments that have grant writers. Complexity doesn't always work, even if it maintains control, it can sometimes hamper the things we need the most (Most firefighting is done by volunteer departments.). 

I know of a fire department that needs a grass truck and has been looking diligently around for over a year with no luck. In a rural area we get a number of grass calls a year because of the forest and easy burn fuel. A bad spark could do millions in damage. Lots of grass fires that run out of control. I have driven that truck and let me say that while it runs it also has lots of play in the steering, runs rough, and is starting to show its age. Fixing it is also expensive and parts are not easy to obtain. If you have $100K and/or a vehicle (tax deductible as we are a non-profit)that can be used for grass fires contact ESC. Vol. Fire Dept. and Escanaba TWP and ESC Twp Vol Fire Dept. Facebook.

Hamel, G. and Zanini, M. (2017). Assessment: Do You Know How Bureaucratic Your Organization Is? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved March 2nd, 2022 from https://hbr.org/2017/05/assessment-do-you-know-how-bureaucratic-your-organization-is#:~:text=By%20our%20estimates%2C%20an%20excess,substantial%2C%20so%20are%20the%20hurdles.