6. 25-1644 Consideration of action to direct the City Administrator to prepare and present within 30-90 days an executive summary describing a potential joint fire department formed by West Allis and Wauwatosa
I oppose advancing the fire merger at this time. The process is moving too quickly without meaningful public input, and framing it as a revenue solution risks shifting more costs onto taxpayers while key operational questions, dispatch integration, union position, and risk management, remain unresolved.
Since 2021, Wauwatosa has sent about ~10,130 auto-aid incidents into Milwaukee and received ~3,674 back, nearly a 3:1 imbalance. City staff notes these are incident counts, not units (Milwaukee often sends multiple apparatus) and that a true cost picture would require tracking hours, staffing, and equipment, data Tosa does not have. While staff characterizes access to Milwaukee’s full system (30 engines, 8 ladders, 13 ambulances, specialty teams) as a “pretty good trade-off,” the imbalance shows Tosa's Fire Department is already overextended. Adding a West Allis merger layers new obligations onto an existing strain, likely increasing costs, elevating operational risk, and offering no guaranteed savings.
The consultant, brought in through a non-competitive process, acknowledges they recommended mergers in roughly two-thirds of their past studies, yet they do not track whether those mergers actually succeeded or failed. Building a major public-safety decision on such incomplete data, while ignoring the clear 3:1 imbalance we already face with Milwaukee, is not responsible governance.
Please pause this process. Before considering any merger, we need a transparent, data-driven evaluation of true costs, operational risks, and alternatives, grounded in unit-level resource data and informed public input. A full risk analysis, including financial impacts, dispatch coordination, and long-term taxpayer obligations, and many other questions brought up at City Hall should be completed and presented to the Common Council before any further steps are taken or dollars allocated to this process.
I oppose advancing the fire merger at this time. The process is moving too quickly without meaningful public input, and framing it as a revenue solution risks shifting more costs onto taxpayers while key operational questions, dispatch integration, union position, and risk management, remain unresolved.
Since 2021, Wauwatosa has sent about ~10,130 auto-aid incidents into Milwaukee and received ~3,674 back, nearly a 3:1 imbalance. City staff notes these are incident counts, not units (Milwaukee often sends multiple apparatus) and that a true cost picture would require tracking hours, staffing, and equipment, data Tosa does not have. While staff characterizes access to Milwaukee’s full system (30 engines, 8 ladders, 13 ambulances, specialty teams) as a “pretty good trade-off,” the imbalance shows Tosa's Fire Department is already overextended. Adding a West Allis merger layers new obligations onto an existing strain, likely increasing costs, elevating operational risk, and offering no guaranteed savings.
The consultant, brought in through a non-competitive process, acknowledges they recommended mergers in roughly two-thirds of their past studies, yet they do not track whether those mergers actually succeeded or failed. Building a major public-safety decision on such incomplete data, while ignoring the clear 3:1 imbalance we already face with Milwaukee, is not responsible governance.
Please pause this process. Before considering any merger, we need a transparent, data-driven evaluation of true costs, operational risks, and alternatives, grounded in unit-level resource data and informed public input. A full risk analysis, including financial impacts, dispatch coordination, and long-term taxpayer obligations, and many other questions brought up at City Hall should be completed and presented to the Common Council before any further steps are taken or dollars allocated to this process.