Welcome to fall, or perhaps early spring or late summer or maybe even winter! As crazy as this year has been I am not sure what to prepare for in the coming months and if things continue as they have been it will certainly change no matter what we plan for. We have seen some things change directly for the FFAM with no convention and a modified State Fair Fire Department. I am proud of the way our organization has adapted to the challenges as they have been presented. Hopefully, next year will see us return to our traditions and roots and we will find some normalcy in our activities.

In this edition let’s visit a bit about accountability. What does that mean anyway? One book definition is the fact or condition of being accountable; responsibility. Another says accountability refers to an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility for one’s actions. A very common application for the fire service accountability is keeping track of all resources and personnel at an incident scene, something we are generally pretty good at.

So if we are good at keeping track of our personnel and resources at our incidents do our agencies or we as individuals also excel at accountability in all other phases of our fire service related service? Are we quick to accept the responsibility for actions taken or for actions not taken? 

Each year the FFAM receives many financial funds through membership dues, corporate sponsorships, donations, and other funding sources.  The annual amount of income as you could probably guess fluctuates quite a bit dependent on the various funding sources that are not all guaranteed at a given rate.  Many of your agencies, municipal and tax-based districts, generally have a fairly good idea each year what the income and available funds may be.  For those paid subscription agencies you no doubt understand how your funds fluctuate depending on who pays each year to be a member.

You might wonder how this affects the overall functions of the FFAM.  As with any business, agency, organization, or group, it takes financial support to be able to function as the FFAM.  Each year we go through a process of setting a budget to be utilized to get through the year and always try to end up with unused funds to carry on to the next year.  Each committee serving the FFAM is tasked with creating a budget request reflecting what funds they will need to accomplish their particular purpose in support of the overall mission of the FFAM.  Those requests are due by the October FFAM Board of Directors meeting.

Once received the requests are individually considered by the Budget Committee for merit.  At times a follow-up conversation takes place to determine if the request is a “need” or a “want” and alterations are made as appropriate.  Once the details get hammered out the committee creates a proposed budget that is presented at the December meeting of the Board of Directors for adoption. 

Discussion is held at that meeting to make the fine-tuned adjustments that may be needed before the final vote is made to adopt a budget.