In 2008, the Boone (Iowa) City Council asked ICMA to evaluate the delivery of its city services—with an emphasis on emergency services (police and fire)—with a goal of delivering effective service levels at a lower cost. Like many other communities across the country, the city of Boone was facing strained budgets without the luxury of reserves.

After a lengthy process, ICMA made its recommendation to create a Public Safety Department where police and fire staff would be classified as public safety officers. The city council chose to establish a Public Safety Department; however, with modifications to the ICMA recommendation, the city chose to maintain separate departments with some level of staff sharing and cross training.

A public safety director position was created to manage the police and fire departments. Police Chief Bill Skare was appointed to the public safety director position in December 2009. Day-to-day operations of the Fire Department are managed by Fire Chief Justin Adams, while daily operations of the Police Department are managed by Commander John Sloter and Commander Chuck Pepples.

Major changes for police and fire included the creation of a Paid-on-Call (POC) Division to assist the career firefighters, along with the creation of a Fire Cross-trained Division that is composed of the city administrator, public works director, one public works employee, and nine certified police officers. All are State of Iowa certified firefighters and a number of POCs are trained EMTs. The POCs are used for all fire/rescue calls when needed, to assist the career firefighters. The Fire Cross-trained Division helps the career firefighters on the initial response to major events until reinforcements arrive to assist at the scene. As more firefighters arrive at a scene, the cross-trained police officers are released back to patrol, when safe to do so. Cross-trained police officers carry their personal protective equipment while on patrol.

The city of Boone has achieved the following results:

• Reduced its budget by approximately $350,000 per year (over $1 million of savings).
• Reduced the number of full-time employees (thru attrition), while maintaining service levels. In fact, service levels are improved.
• Used taxpayer monies more efficiently.
• Increased the number of certified firefighters to respond to calls for service due to a growing POC division and cross-trained firefighters.
• Improved working relationship between the fire and police, while other cross-trained firefighter relationships have also improved with administration and public works.
• Offered more joint training for city employees.
• Increased funding available for crucial upgrades of Fire Department equipment.
• Improved relationships with elected officials resulting in a more unified team.
• Increased understanding of each employee’s job tasks within fire, public works, and police.
• Provided yearly stipend to cross-trained employees for maintaining their firefighter certification. (A nice benefit for employees while the city still enjoys substantial cost savings.)

Since the inception of the hiring freeze and public safety reorganization, the city has set a reserve fund policy. The initial policy was set in 2009 at 25% of an annual budget. Initial estimates indicated it would take eight to ten years for the city to achieve its goals. As of 2012 that reserve fund goal was met, taking only three years. Today the city is increasing the reserve fund policy to 30%. Achieving that goal will happen quickly given the achievements of public safety.