The Hawaii Fire Department remained on target to its annual budget as of November, just under halfway through the fiscal year.
Projected end of fiscal year budget projections show the department coming in at 105.46% of the $62 million budget, however, Fire Chief Kazuo Todd explained that figure is based on extrapolation of what has currently been spent and does not truly reflect where they will end up.
Todd presented his monthly report to the Fire Commission on Dec. 7 at the West Hawaii Civic Center. Hawaii County’s fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30.
“There may be a huge expenditure in equipment in one month, when the bid went down to finance then the bill got in and got paid,” he said. “One item that concerns me is parts. We buy parts for our mechanics to fix our ambulances and fire trucks. It’s a very fixed rate that doesn’t doesn’t change drastically in one month as we are providing it but we can see what’s in the budget based on things we are trying to repair. We budget so that at the end of the year we still have money to buy parts.”
The projected budget of 121.44% in that category could be indicative that the department will need to go back to the Finance Department in the next budget cycle and ask for more money for that line item. Todd said that is a good reason to track it, but does not necessarily mean they will spend it all by the end of the fiscal year.
EMS equipment as of Nov. 30 expended 94.13% of the budget, with an extrapolation of a budget overrun at 225.91%. Todd said that figure is because the department purchased five ambulances at the beginning of the budget cycle. The majority of that line item budget is for vehicles, and since vehicles are normally purchased only once a year, there should not be any more major expenditures, which would bring it in at budget.
“I try to frontload almost everything at the beginning of the year because if I waited until the end of the year finance would say ‘oh we’re too busy while everybody else is waiting and we can’t get your purchase done’ and we would end up with money that wouldn’t get spent,” Todd explained.
He said one of the important items to look at is salary and wages, which are projected to come in at 108% for fire and 100% for EMS, which is “pretty much” on target.
The department has also received initial approval to apply for a community development block grant for five brush trucks and three vehicles. Those applications will be put together and be submitted to the Department of Housing.
“Hopefully, those will go through and we will get the approval to proceed,” Todd said.
In other matters, Todd reported approximately 18,000 acres have burned on the island this year. The largest chunk of that was a fire that burned about 17,000 acres in the Pohakuloa Training Area in August.