Current Issue - April 2018
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Welcome to April. We are so excited to present the first issue of Volume V! At the Ready begins it’s 5th year and we appreciate all of our readers, contributors, and supporters for helping us get to this milestone. We look forward to serving you as, “the voice for those who respond first” for years to come. In this issue we are tackling a pretty touchy topic: Compensation. We ask the bold question, “Are you paid a living wage?” At the Ready’s Mike Kennedy took a deep look at “...
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I’ll bet you have an emergency operations plan. Considering the nature of this publication, its contributors, and its readership, that bet is as close to a sure thing as I’ll ever get. Your plan is undoubtedly a good plan; perhaps even a great plan. You may have put your plan into effect at some point, either during an exercise or as part of a real-world event, and so have proved its value. Those of you who have been in the emergency management profession for a while might recall the days...
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Our intent here is to report on At the Ready’s findings from our research into how the salaries of the first responder fields fare in all 50 states and Washington D.C. What is a living wage? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) living wage model was developed as an alternative way (as opposed to poverty rate data) to describe economic conditions in a given state. MIT describes it as “market-based approach that draws upon geographically specific expenditure data related to a family...
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Any discussion about Firefighter compensation on a national level must begin with the acknowledgement that, of the estimated 1,160,450 local Firefighters in the U.S. (2015), 814,850 (70%) are volunteers (1). In other words, they perform the duties and carry the responsibilities of a fire department for free. The other 30 percent of those Firefighters are paid. This article is about them. Did you know that in 33 states the mean salary of these brave men and women is less than a living wage? Did...
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Approximately 240 million 911 calls are made each year (1). Think about that for a minute- that’s roughly 657,534 calls to 911 every day. For many of the 657,534 people who called 911, it was the worst day of their lives. In 2016 (the last year of complete data available) alone, there were 17,250 Murders, 95,730 Rapes, 332,198 Robberies, and 803,007 Aggravated Assaults (2) in the United States. Do you ever think about the person on the other end of the phone line when you call 911? That calm...
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In a typical work environment, you do your job, surrounded by any number of other people a lot like you. All of you work toward the common goal of making something, selling something, making something better or fixing something. On most days, you and your coworkers do the job with a smile on your face, are polite to each other, and help each other out. Every two weeks, you get a paycheck for your efforts, and some of you get the satisfaction of being paid more than a living wage for doing your...
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At the Region At the Region is an ongoing feature that discusses the state-by-state training, certification and employment requirements of first responder departments across the nation. In this issue, At the Region looks at EMS requirements in FEMA Region VII: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. FEMA Region VII - Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Emergency Medical Technician certification levels result from a combination of national requirements and state-by-state regulations. All...
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The current issue focused on public safety wages, but no discussion would be complete without resources to support your public safety career. In this article, you will find some resources and information to help you with your current finances and opportunities to ensure your future financial health. For example, the Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF) may be available to you if you meet certain criteria. We understand the importance of keeping personal stress low because the...
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Disclaimer: This [article] is not about politics. A man is being publicly grilled about why he was alone in a room with someone he felt was threatening him. Why didn’t he simply resign if he felt uncomfortable with what his boss was asking him to do? Why did he keep taking calls from that boss, even if he thought they were inappropriate? Why didn’t he just come out and say he would not do what the boss was asking for? (Women Say to Comey: Welcome to Our World, New York Times, June 8, 2017...
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Back in 2005, I needed some help at the Battle Lab. One of the people I interviewed for the job was a Columbus, Georgia motorcycle police officer. He called me a couple hours before the interview and asked me if it would be okay for him to show up in uniform. I said sure, no problem. I thought to myself, "Why would a cop who gets to ride around all day on a Harley, carry a gun every day, and arrest bad guys want to leave all that just to experiment with cool toys for the Army?” Right away I got...
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As readers, you know first hand that At the Ready has always been about supporting first responders, but how many of you have been on the other side of the equation? Not many, I am sure, though I have. In 2013 I fell from a ladder, 18 feet down onto pure concrete; I lay there with four skull fractures, most of my brain bleeding, and my XVIII Cranial Nerve severed--my head hit first. I was in bad shape and I would have died had my son not immediately called 911. They arrived and started...
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Welcome reader to this new April edition whence we make a calculated and ambitious expansion to our 'At the Region' offering - and soon to be 'At the Nation' offering - by leaping to an 'At the Planet' series. If a FEMA region is good, and a whole Nation is an even more formidable 'Bird's Eye View' - given I haven't seen any birds flying so stratospherically that they're peeking at entire nations? - then a whole Planet must be even better! (And just wait until we go Intergalactic!!!). In our...
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