In the fall of 2010, the guest speaker projected that there would be more budget cuts coming in 2011 at the state level. He projected this because he saw that the real estate was declining in many states, and the norms would not go back for another 5 years. He also saw state governments use up all their “rainy day” funds. He also mentioned Obama’s stimulus package included keeping state employees on the job and the money would be running out in the summer of 2011. States are passing budget plans among the cities. Many states have been doing revenue sharing, which they have been, collecting money as a state and moving it around to the cities. The governor in Michigan is taking a creative approach by reviewing all the revenue sharing and taking the money from the state and giving it to cities that are working creatively like merging services and training for multiple emergencies. I did not know that some cities and counties have combined governments and combined services and training. I thought all ran accordingly to job title. This is a creative approach to saving money and broadening one’s personal and professional experiences. In Kalamazoo they keep only one firefighter in most stations and they are trained to be both police and fireman and the policemen go to a fire with fire equipment and are trained to fight fighters. The reason this works is because of an efficiency factor, they can get there faster and there is very little hard data on risks of fire. It is hard to measure outcomes with these types of models, but it has been working for cities in Michigan for about a decade. Most officers would have some first responder capabilities and would carry some equipment so that they are able to start helping when they arrive at a scene of a fire or any other emergency instead of waiting for all the different types of help to come and use their specialties. In Florida some policemen ride in other vehicles than police cars, that are equipped with water or foam that is able to help put out fires. There are big differences in cities and in suburbs as far as time and help needed. In larger cities if a building is on fire, they are very close to other buildings and can be 5 stories high, and in the suburbs one or two stories are much easier to maneuver and get people out of quickly. Also he mentions that in suburb fires, most of the time, people are out of the homes by the time help arrives and they need less assistance than in a major city. This all seems like common sense, but it also seems so much smarter to cross-train officers so that there can be less people and more training in areas that are less dangerousness or necessary to have the man power in the suburb areas. The majority of calls they have looked through and analyzed are non-emergency calls and there can be alternative ways of responding to these calls. There needs to be a judgment call about trained civilians to handle these non emergency calls rather than state police officers.