Consolidation of Police and Fire Services in the United States

Abstract

More than 100 municipalities across the United States have consolidated their police, fire, and emergency medical services into a single, consolidated agency. Typical reasons for such consolidation are to reduce costs or improve efficiency. As initial reasons to consolidate change or diminish, some agencies have deconsolidated, but many remained consolidated. In this work, we use perspectives of contingency theory and institutional theory of organizations to explore why agencies may remain consolidated. Using a mixed-methods approach, we first recruited two expert panels of consolidated agency leaders and others knowledgeable about consolidation and deconsolidation across the United States. From these experts, we gathered insight into a broad range of issues related to public-safety consolidation. We then conducted a series of seven case studies among communities chosen for their location and community features, interviewing agency executives and line staff as well as local officials. We found contingency theory helps explain why many of these agencies consolidate. We also found, as institutional theory would predict, that many conformed to standards of other bodies or even created their own “cultural” standards. This work highlights the importance of both theoretical perspectives in assessing the growth and persistence of these agencies.

Keywords

police fire public-safety consolidation contingency theory institutional theory

Introduction

In recent years, local governments have struggled to maintain public-safety services. Five years after the “Great Recession,” most U.S. municipalities had not returned to their prior revenue and employment levels (House, 2013). Such problems persisted for police and fire services, the second largest category of expenditures for U.S. local government (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015). A recent Police Executive Research Forum (PERF, 2014) survey found three in four U.S. police agencies expect continuing budget cuts and force reductions.

In the face of such challenges, many local police agencies have implemented hiring freezes, layoffs, furloughs, or even disbandment (Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2011; Melekian, 2012; PERF, 2010; Wilson, Dalton, Scheer, & Grammich, 2010). Others have explored differing modes of service delivery, greater sharing of services with other communities, contracting for services, and merging of agencies (Chermak, Scheer, & Wilson, 2014; Wilson, Weiss, & Grammich, 2016; Wilson & Grammich, 2012, 2017).

One approach that has grown in the recent years is consolidating police, fire, and emergency medical services into a single “public-safety” agency. There are now more than 130 such agencies in the United States; about one in four of these have been established in the past decade (Wilson, Hollis, & Grammich, 2016). While less documented elsewhere, consolidated public-safety agencies have also been extant in Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom (International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire Chiefs, n.d.; Morley & Hadley, 2013; Rosen, 2010). Indeed, in the United Kingdom, the Cameron (2015) government has called for “police, fire and ambulance services to work more closely together to save money and improve their effectiveness.”

While the number of such agencies is growing, several have deconsolidated over time (Wilson & Grammich, 2015). Among reasons cited for deconsolidation has been the need for greater specialization, particularly in growing areas or those with significant homeland-security duties, the failure to reflect changing community characteristics, and the need for administrative streamlining. Such deconsolidations pose a question for consolidated agencies: Why do they persist?

This article explores why communities have maintained consolidated public-safety agencies. It explores the extent to which two types of organizational theory—contingency theory and institutional theory—may explain the origins and persistence of consolidated public-safety agencies. We review seven communities that consolidated their police and fire services between the 1950s and 1980s. The decades since in these communities provide a sufficient time period to explore the challenges such agencies have faced, including, for some, protracted transition periods. The lessons of this work can help communities that have adopted, or are considering, the model understand how it may best function.

We begin with a review of previous research on the origins and operations of public-safety agencies and their place within the context of research on police organization. We then summarize our methods for this research, including our approach to selecting and exploring our case-study communities and what we learned from them. We conclude with lessons from our case studies for other communities and police organization research, suggesting directions for future work.

Literature Review

History and Forms of Public-Safety Consolidation

Public-safety consolidation dates back to ancient Rome, when city watchmen executed both firefighting and law enforcement duties (Morley & Hadley, 2013). In the 19th-century Britain, special constables provided both police and fire services; this practice persisted until World War II, when, faced with the fire bombings of the war, Parliament nationalized and separated police and fire services (International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire Chiefs, n.d.). Similarly, both Germany and Japan had consolidated police and fire service until after World War II, when the Allies, deeming such a combination undesirable, reorganized and separated police and firefighting activities (International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire Chiefs, n.d.).

Yet, the British government is again exploring consolidation to improve government efficiency and effectiveness (Cameron, 2015). In Hampshire, county council officials first explored administrative consolidation of police, fire, and rescue services in response to cuts in national government subsidies and increased demands for social services (Lloyd, 2014). A firefighters’ union expressed concern about sharing of facilities with police, particularly for firefighter training (BBC, 2014). Nevertheless, as of early 2016, the county government was pursuing further consolidation of these services, with the national government seeking to make consolidation easier elsewhere (Streatfield, 2016).

In North America, a consolidated agency for police and fire services first appeared in Quebec in 1857 (International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire Chiefs, n.d.). Within the United States, consolidated agencies first appeared in the early 20th century (Matarese, Chelst, Fisher-Steward, & Pearsall, 2007). U.S. communities considered consolidation for its perceived efficiency and cost-effectiveness (Ayres, 1957). Organized labor and firefighters resisted it on the grounds that consolidating police and fire services would lead to inadequacies in both services (Bernitt, 1962; International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire chiefs, n.d.; Wall, 1961).

Interest grew with citizen demands for more and better services without tax increases (Berenbaum, 1977). Those supporting public-safety consolidation posited that it leads to more contact of officers with the public, better response times, better career opportunities for officers, and cost-effectiveness; those opposing it raised concerns such as extensive training requirements, inapplicability to larger jurisdictions, and apprehension about individual positions (Crank & Alexander, 1990; Farr & Daniel, 1988; Lynch & Lord, 1979; Wilson, Weiss, & Grammich, 2016.).

Organizational Theory and the Consolidation of Police and Fire Services

Organization theory—particularly contingency theories (Donaldson, 1995; Maguire, 2003) and institutional theories (Crank & Langworthy, 1992, 1996; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Zucker, 1987)—offers insights into why communities may consolidate their police and fire agencies and maintain such consolidation. Police scholars have frequently drawn upon these theories to examine many police organization issues. Some works have even combined insights of both these theories in exploring topics such as disbanding of police agencies (W. R. King, 2014), racial profiling (Miller, 2013), and community policing (Wilson, 2006).

Contingency theory holds that organizational characteristics such as size, age, task variety, and environment determine structure and activities. Contingencies are characteristics or events that depend on one another. Managers help the organization adapt to its environment through better-fitting structures (Donaldson, 1995). Organizations seek to fit their “structure to the task contingency to yield operational effectiveness” (Donaldson, 1995, p. 27), “adapt[ing] to their environments by adopting an internal organizational structure that fits their contingency factors (e.g., strategy), which in turn fit the environment” (Donaldson, 1995, pp. 29–30). When an organization’s structure does not fit its environment, it will fall into “misfit,” and the organization will subsequently work “to restore effectiveness and performance” (Donaldson, 1995, p. 33) or to restore “fit.” Altogether, contingency theory suggests that communities may consolidate police and fire services if the transition would improve the delivery and successfulness of services. As noted earlier, and as we will see in case studies, increasing effectiveness and efficiency of services is a common motivation for consolidation. Contingency theory has been applied to policing issues such as community policing (Maguire, Uchida, & Hassell, 2015; Morabito, 2008, 2010), homeland-security preparedness (Haynes & Giblin, 2014), police misconduct (Eitle, D’Alessio, & Stolzenberg, 2014), police responses to human trafficking (Farrell, 2014), drug arrest rates (Eitle & Monahan, 2009), mandatory arrest policies (Eitle, 2005), development of crime analysis units (Giblin, 2006), and campus law enforcement agency operations (Paoline & Sloan, 2003).

Institutional theory holds that public-safety agencies may develop in response to their institutional environment. An organization’s institutional environment may be shaped by its regional characteristics or external entities such as professional organizations. Formal organizational structures may also come to reflect rationalized institutional rules (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Put another way, institutional theory suggests police organizations need to conform to rules or even to foundational “myths” of sanctioning organizations. Similarly, organizational forms and behaviors may “take the form that they do because of prevailing values and beliefs that have become institutionalized” and that are “recognized as valued natural communities where self-maintenance becomes an end in itself” (Crank & Langworthy, 1992, p. 346). As we will see in our case studies, public-safety organizations may evolve to conform to the standards of sanctioning bodies, such as those of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA^®) and the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI). Some may even develop their own “culture” and norms which they consider in choosing among new applicants so as to maintain the “valued natural communities” they have developed.

Institutional theory has been applied to issues such as community policing (Burruss & Giblin, 2014), homeland-security practices (Burruss, Giblin, & Schafer, 2010), intelligence-led policing (Darroch & Mazzerole, 2013), minority hiring and promotion (Gustafson, 2013), arrests of the mentally ill (Morabito, 2007), hate crime law enforcement (R. D. King, 2007), and gang units (C. M. Katz, 2001).

To explore the extent to which contingency and institutional theories of organization may explain the consolidation of police and fire services, we conducted in-depth case studies of seven agencies. All these agencies have similar levels of consolidation. In contrast to agencies that may have only “nominal” consolidation of administrative functions, in which only administrative functions may be shared, all these agencies have cross-trained public-safety officers who perform both police and firefighting duties. They also have a single chief of public safety and fully merged administrative functions (for more on levels and types of public safety consolidation, see Wilson & Grammich, 2015, and Lynch & Lord, 1979). They do, however, differ in how they approach their daily tasks. We turn next to our methods, including how we selected our case study communities.

Methods

We sought to gather rich detail about the issues communities face as they consider and implemented consolidation of public-safety services. Using a mixed-methods approach, we undertook three tasks.

First, we recruited two expert panels to discuss public-safety consolidation. Using a semistructured discussion protocol, we asked about a broad range of issues, including impetus for change, transition processes and cultural change, fire suppression, mutual aid, provision of mutual services, medical services, first-line supervision, conflicts of interest, efficiency and outcomes, and community policing. We held the first panel in February 2012 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with 12 mid- to senior-level police, public-safety, and accreditation officials knowledgeable about public-safety consolidation in Michigan, where the public-safety model is most prevalent (Wilson, Hollis, & Grammich, 2016). We held the second panel in March 2012 in Dallas, Texas, with nine current and former police, fire, and public-safety chiefs and directors knowledgeable about consolidation and deconsolidation across the United States.

Second, we conducted a series of case studies of communities that have consolidated their police and fire services. We developed a diverse sample of communities that varied by location and community features. For each, we interviewed line staff across functions, public-safety executives, and local officials. Our case-study communities were Aiken, South Carolina; Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin; East Grand Rapids, Michigan; Glencoe, Illinois; Highland Park, Texas; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Sunnyvale, California. Table 1 summarizes characteristics of these communities. These communities range in population from 8,000 to more than 140,000, and in area from 2 to 25 square miles. Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Part I Crime rates in 2012 ranged from 648 to 5,771 per 100,000 residents. Three of the seven agencies have CALEA accreditation; nationwide, 20–33%of police agencies with 25 to 300 employees (the range for all our case-study agencies) have such accreditation (Cordner & Gordon, 2011). One of the case-study communities, Glencoe, has CFAI accreditation; nationwide, only about 200 fire departments have received this accreditation (CFAI, 2014).

Table 1.

Characteristics of Public Safety Consolidation Case-Study Communities.

Community	Total Population, 2010	Land Area, square miles	Persons per square mile	% <18 years	% 65+ years	% Single-race non-Hispanic White	% 25+ Years With Bachelor’s Degree	Per-Capita Income (2012 Dollars)	Home-Ownership Rate, %	UCR Part I Crimes per 100 K Population, 2012	CALEA^®	CFAI
Aiken	29,524	20.7	1,426	19.6	21.9	65.5	44.5	32,312	67.8	5,771	Yes	No
Ashwaubenon	16,963	12.4	1,369	21.2	14.6	89.1	27.6	31,204	62.8	4,086	No	No
East Grand Rapids	10,694	2.9	3,650	31.6	9.7	94.3	76.6	52,893	91.1	648	No	No
Glencoe	8,723	3.7	2,224	31.6	14.4	92.0	84.1	99,036	93.1	1,073	Yes	Yes
Highland Park	8,564	2.2	3,823	26.8	17.2	91.6	81.5	122,811	82.3	2,829	Yes	No
Kalamazoo	74,262	24.7	3,009	20.5	9.4	65.6	32.3	18,402	46.3	5,050	No	No
Sunnyvale	140,081	22.0	6,371	22.4	11.2	34.5	56.9	45,636	46.3	1,898	No	No

Note. CFAI = Commission on Fire Accreditation International; CALEA = Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Part I crimes are murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny theft, and motor vehicle theft. CALEA^® and CFAI columns indicate whether agencies have received accreditation from these organizations. Adapted from U.S. Census Bureau (2014); Federal Bureau of Investigation (2013); CALEA^® (2010); CFAI (2014).

Finally, to complement the primary data collection, we reviewed existing information about public-safety consolidation. This included information about the case-study communities specifically and about public-safety consolidation and police organizational theory generally. Existing resources on public-safety consolidation are few and vary greatly in methodological rigor, but they help provide additional context for our data and lessons.

Findings

For each location, we present information on background characteristics, origins of consolidation, and reasons why consolidation may have persisted. In earlier similar research (Wilson & Grammich, 2015), we explored the reasons why consolidation has failed. We found in many deconsolidation communities that while some contingencies may have led to consolidation, these contingencies later changed or institutional norms ultimately spurred deconsolidation. Here, we will see continuing contingencies, or even evolving institutional norms, have led to maintenance of consolidation.

Aiken, South Carolina

Aiken, in upstate South Carolina, expanded rapidly in the 1950s after a federal government nuclear reservation, the Savannah River Site, was built to develop materials for nuclear weapons. It first considered public-safety consolidation in 1960, but the police and fire departments did not merge until 1970. To achieve integration of police and fire services in the 1970s, the department consolidated administrative functions, had police officers attend firefighter training, and had firefighters attend basic law enforcement training.

Support of local leaders was vital to the transition. A former official told us, “When you first do this, there is going to be both positive and negative stories on the local television station and in the local newspapers. Everybody needs to know upfront that this isn’t going to be easy, but you need to stay with the plan, support the plan…Staff knew what the program was: they could accept the change or seek employment elsewhere.”

In the 1980s and 1990s, the city grew significantly due to expansion of the Savannah River Site. As it grew, the public-safety department achieved several milestones. These included CALEA accreditation and an improved fire-services rating, creation of a special-response team, upgraded training facilities, and opening of two additional public-safety stations. In 2013, the department had 135 full-time employees (89 sworn) and 33 part-time, seasonal, or volunteer workers. Anderson, South Carolina, with a 2010 population of 26,686, had a police force of 147 police personnel (95 sworn) as well as a firefighting force of about 60 personnel (City of Anderson, 2012, 2014) at the time of our research.

Aiken public-safety officers respond to a variety of crimes and emergencies. While its UCR Part I Crime rate was highest among the communities we considered, it was lower than that for Myrtle Beach and Anderson, the South Carolina cities closest to it in population. Aiken has suffered relatively few structure fires: less than one weekly in 2011. Equipped public-safety officers can, a former official said, handle more typical small fires: “If you get five or six public-safety officers on a fire early, then you can put out a lot of them, and won’t need a bigger response.” Rescue and emergency medical service calls were more common for which the city relied on county efforts.

New public-safety officers in Aiken have undergone police, fire-fighting, and emergency medical services training. The department has provided training to its personnel throughout the year, including more than 14,000 hr in 2010. The department has also sought to manage cultural issues that may arise. Police officers and fire fighters, the former Aiken public-safety official said, “have different personalities” and may also have different levels of fitness and education in some communities. One way the department has avoided cultural conflict, the former chief said, has been to emphasize developing its own officers rather than hiring those from elsewhere who may be “ingrained” in other ways. “We hire those that we teach and teach them what we want them to learn,” he said.

The persistence of the public-safety model in Aiken may be attributable to both contingency and institutional influences. The agency has provided police and fire services with fewer personnel than a nearby comparable community and has maintained a lower crime rate than South Carolina cities of its size, thereby keeping in “fit” with what may reasonably be expected of an agency in its area. The agency has also grown with its community. At the same time, the agency has conformed to institutional norms, such as those promulgated by CALEA, and also sought to develop its own “culture,” differing from that of police and firefighter agencies, through its hiring.

Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin

Ashwaubenon borders Green Bay and partially includes two of the city’s most notable landmarks: Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers football team, and Austin Straubel Airport. Ashwaubenon has about one sixth the population and one fourth the area of Green Bay. Brown County, which includes both Ashwaubenon and Green Bay, has a 250,000 population.

Public-safety services have evolved over time in Ashwaubenon. Ashwaubenon organized a volunteer fire company in 1942, adding a second station following rapid population growth in the 1960s. In 1967, Ashwaubenon contracted with the county for a dedicated sheriff’s department officer, adding another one in 1977. In 1973, Ashwaubenon added emergency medical and rescue services, staffed first by volunteers and later by a small number of professionals.

In 1979, the village merged the fire company and the rescue squad. At that time, there was growing support for the village to form its own police department as well. Visits to public-safety departments led village officials to consider its own consolidated agency to offer police, fire, rescue, and emergency medical services. The idea drew some criticism, particularly among those doubting the same personnel could perform all tasks. The chief of the volunteer fire department, however, countered by saying, “If you have a butcher in a packing plant who is also a volunteer fireman, he has to be proficient at both jobs” (Village of Ashwaubenon Department of Public Safety, 2013).

After 6 months of study, the village board voted unanimously in February 1980 to implement a public-safety department. By August 1981, the public-safety department had its own dispatch center, equipment, and 22 full-time public-safety officers. (The village terminated its contract for sheriff’s deputies after the public-safety department completed its first year of service.) The department grew with the population of the village. In 2014, it had 55 employees, of whom 50 were sworn officers and 22 were certified paramedics.

Comparable nearby municipalities in the area have relied on a variety of mechanisms for police and fire services, including merged departments. Allouez (which in 2010 had a population of 13,975) recently merged its fire department with that of Green Bay (Village of Allouez, 2013a). Bellevue (14,570 population) and Howard (17,399 population) have relied mostly on paid on-call firefighters (Village of Bellevue, 2013; Village of Howard, 2015a). All three contracted with the Brown County Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement services (Village of Allouez, 2013b; Village of Bellevue, 2015; Village of Howard, 2015b).

Ashwaubenon public-safety officers responded to nearly 20,000 calls for service in 2012. Of these, nearly one third dealt with traffic offenses. Most crime in the village was relatively minor. Public-safety officers also responded to 67 fire calls, of which only 8, or less than 1 per month, were for building fires. The department has participated in the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) with 18 other communities and Straubel Airport.

Most Ashwaubenon public-safety officers have attended a Wisconsin law enforcement academy prior to joining the department. All must have at least 60 semester hours of college credit. Some have voluntarily sought fire service certification. Wisconsin mandates 24 hr of annual training for police personnel and 18 hr for fire personnel as well as 12 hr for emergency medical technicians and 48 hr of refresher training for paramedics every 2 years. In 2012, Ashwaubenon paid US$25,000 for police overtime training, US$13,500 for fire overtime training, and US$16,500 for emergency medical technician overtime training.

Ashwaubenon has shown a mix of contingency and institutional influences on its public-safety organization. The department evolved to provide police and fire services to its growing community but was able to turn to other communities providing service in nontraditional ways before establishing its own public-safety model.

East Grand Rapids, Michigan

East Grand Rapids, part of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area, was established as a village in 1891 and incorporated as a home-rule city in 1926. Its size at the time of our study was about one twentieth the size and population of Grand Rapids. East Grand Rapids established its public-safety department in 1985 by combining its police and fire departments into one organization (City of East Grand Rapids, n.d.).

The city initially considered consolidation in the 1960s to improve police and fire services. The ultimate transition took time, even after the council approved it in the 1980s. Yet once older personnel had retired, a department leader said, the department, and its employees, succeeded in developing a “public-safety culture” independent of previous police and fire cultures in the city, under which “Firefighters never ha[d] to deal with the personalities that police do, and [we]re always seen as heroes. Police have had to deal with more of the positive and the negative.”

Each day, the department leader said, public-safety officers realize they are “going to get a police assignment, a fire assignment, and a medic assignment.” Each of the 29 sworn personnel has been trained in law enforcement, firefighting, and medical first response. The department has not qualified all its public-safety officers as emergency medical technicians because the vast majority of its medical service calls have not required such expertise. Altogether, the department leader said, the agency has been one of “generalist specialists.” Personnel receive annual training in areas such as weapons qualification, fire strategies and tactics, medical first aid, precision driving, hazardous materials, and patient assessment (City of East Grand Rapids, 2011).

Most service calls have been for traffic enforcement activities (City of East Grand Rapids, 2011). East Grand Rapids has relatively little crime; indeed, it has the lowest crime rate among the communities we studied. It has also had few fire calls, averaging less than 200 such calls per year, with only a handful being for building fires. Most fire service calls have been for false or unfounded alarms, downed utility wires, carbon monoxide alarms, or smoke investigations. The lack of fire calls, and the ability to prove firefighting skills, a department leader told our focus group, may have reduced acceptance of the agency by local fire departments.

City officials have claimed that consolidation helped them improve efficiency. While 40 police and fire personnel once provided service to East Grand Rapids, 30 sufficed in 2014. Another somewhat larger municipality in the Grand Rapids area, Grandville (population 15,596 in 2010), had 28 police officers and a firefighting force of six full-time firefighters and nearly 30 paid on-call firefighters (City of Grandville, 2012a, 2012b). East Grand Rapids officials have contended that consolidation helps it respond to complex incidents. For example, the leader noted that an incident in which a person was pinned under another vehicle would typically have required three agencies to respond—police to maintain traffic, fire to remove the vehicle, and emergency medical services to provide medical response to the victim—but public-safety officers arriving on such a scene can immediately assume the necessary positions.

The department leader also claimed that public-safety consolidation benefits community policing. He said, “[H]av[ing] people trained in different levels” and tasks can ensure the department is ready to respond to many different types of situations with many types of personnel. He recounted, “We had a day with a lost child that we had all guys out on the street, even in an engine, looking…I can’t think of any negatives” for community policing.

While the East Grand Rapids consolidation represented a response to a contingency, specifically the need to improve police and fire services, institutional influences may be stronger in the department’s maintenance. These have been evident in both the length of the transition and in the development of a public-safety “culture,” independent of previously existing police and firefighting cultures in the city.

Glencoe, Illinois

Glencoe is a highly affluent, residential lakefront community in north suburban Chicago. At the time of our research, its per-capita income was nearly 4 times the national level and the second highest among the communities we reviewed. Its home-ownership rate was the highest among the communities we studied. Its characteristics have been comparable to neighboring Winnetka (population 12,187, per-capita income US$102,187).

Glencoe was incorporated in 1869. It became the first community in Illinois to adopt the council-manager form of government in 1914 (Village of Glencoe, 2015). It first considered combining its police and fire departments in 1953 in order to “more efficiently use the time and abilities of personnel in both departments to handle duties that would complement each of the individual service areas” (Harlow, 1994, p. 25). The first efforts toward consolidation trained police officers and firefighters to learn the duties of both positions—making Glencoe the first Illinois community to cross-train police and firefighters. The department integrated paramedic services in 1974. By the early 1980s, integration was virtually complete, and the department devised common branding for all public-safety vehicles. Glencoe received its first CALEA accreditation in 1994. In 2004, it became the first community to be accredited by both CALEA and the CFAI.

In 2013, the department had 42 full-time employees, including a director, a deputy chief, seven lieutenants, and 24 public-safety officers. Winnetka had a police force of 27 sworn officers and 13 civilian employees as well as a fire department with 24 career personnel (Village of Winnetka, 2015; Winnetka Police Department, 2013)—or more than one and one half times the combined number of combined police and fire staff for a population a bit more than one and one third times the size of Glencoe.

Glencoe has had a low crime rate. As a result, relatively few of its calls are for criminal offenses or arrests. In 2011, nearly 18,400 of its 21,138 calls were for other police matters besides criminal offences or motor vehicle accidents; 2,084 of its calls were for fires or emergency medical services.

All sworn employees of the department have been trained and certified as police officers and firefighters. About half the staff has also been certified as paramedics, and a few members have been certified as fire engineers. The department has used a quarterly rotation system; officers may work on patrol or in station.

Glencoe has participated in MABAS with 18 other fire departments. Because its personnel respond to fire calls in three adjacent communities, they have acquired far more firefighting experience than they would if they had been limited to responses in their own community.

In fiscal year (FY) 2013, the Glencoe Department of Public Safety had a budget of US$7.6 million, with a per-capita cost of US$864. Of this budget, US$6.7 million was spent on personnel; by function, police work accounted for US$5.3 million of the budget. Winnetka had an annual budget of US$11.3 million for its police and fire services, with a per-capita cost of US$929 at the time of our research.

By providing police and fire services at a lower cost than its neighbors, the Glencoe Department of Public Safety has responded to the contingency that municipalities face of providing such services efficiently. Yet institutional influences have been evident in Glencoe, both in the department’s pursuit of CALEA and CFAI certification and in the village’s history of adopting good government initiatives.

Highland Park, Texas

Highland Park, surrounded by the cities of Dallas and University Park, is about 3 miles north of the Dallas city center. Like Glencoe, Highland Park is a wealthy community, with a per-capita income more than 4 times that of the nation and 5 times that of Texas. It is somewhat comparable to University Park (population 23,068, per-capita income US$69,075).

Incorporated in 1913, the town initially sought to have a single agency provide police and fire services, with a town marshal in charge of both. When it hired a police chief from Dallas in the 1920s, it developed separate police and fire departments. These departments remained separate until 1977 when the town council voted to consolidate them with emergency medical services in a public-safety department (Fant, 1990).

The transition to a fully consolidated agency took 15 years to implement. It was not complete, a department leader told our focus group, until the last “single-discipline” person from the previously separate police and fire functions retired. From its inception, the department provided incentive pay for cross-trained personnel (Fant, 1990). At the time of our study, it assigned personnel to 24-hr shifts followed by 48 hr off-duty. On each shift, an officer spent 8 hr on patrol and 16 hr in station.

As of 2013, the department had 69 total personnel and 54 sworn personnel; of its 54 sworn personnel, 48 were also paramedics. Altogether, Highland Park has had more than six public-safety officers per 1,000 persons—more than double the 2.9 police and firefighters combined per 1,000 persons that University Park had.

The department first received CALEA accreditation in 1988. It has not pursued complete police and fire accreditation in all specialties, a department leader told our focus group, because it has offered few opportunities for specialization.

The department has sought to build a unique culture that blends an individualistic police culture and a firefighter culture more focused on teamwork but has faced challenges maintaining it. “There is a cultural difference between police and fire in station life,” a department leader told our focus group. “Firefighters can step right in because they’ve lived in a station. But police officers don’t know how to handle it. Those kinds of things are difficult to adjust to. The most difficult transition is taking an officer from a major city or a very rural department…Our officers have to be able to be individualistic on the street but part of a team in the station.”

The agency, a leader said, has worked “with a PhD in axiology to help with hiring and ranking candidates by 18 different characteristics” deemed critical to service in a public-safety department. “In our situation,” he said, “there are people who don’t want to do both, but they self-select away from our department, or we do that for them…It is reasonable to expect [candidates will] be better at some job tasks than others, but they can be competent at all” tasks.

The department has required applicants to have a 4-year college degree, because previous applicants without such a degree had difficulty completing all department training. Training has remained a challenge, particularly maintaining certification and having personnel participate in regional special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team training. The department has had a sergeant whose sole duties have been to manage training. New personnel have needed 2 years before they are fully qualified for police, fire, and emergency medical services duties.

The department has answered about 12,000 calls for service each year. Traffic citations are the most common call for service, followed by home or business checks, and community contacts. Part I crimes have accounted only for about 200 calls annually, while mobile intensive care unit responses have accounted for about 400 calls and fire responses have accounted for about 600 calls annually.

Public-safety consolidation in Highland Park has not been, as claimed elsewhere, as a means to save money: the agency’s annual costs have been about US$1,000 per capita. Nevertheless, the community’s affluence, stable finances, and desire for public-safety officers to arrive quickly and know what to do regardless of the situation have all led to continued support for the model. “What sells it in our community,” a department leader said, “is that somebody who arrives at their door in two minutes knows what to do regardless of the situation.”

The organizational influences on Highland Park appear to have been relatively unique among the communities we study. The contingency it has fulfilled, answering the demand for public-safety officers able to handle the widest possible range of scenarios, contrasts with that in most communities for lower cost services. The department has also made considerable efforts to conform to institutional influences, from employing an axiologist to help select among applicants to achieving CALEA accreditation that most agencies of its size do not have.

Kalamazoo, Michigan

Kalamazoo comprises nearly one fourth the population of its namesake metropolitan area. Originally settled by fur traders, and experiencing 19th-century growth as an agricultural and paper manufacturing center, the city experienced growth and decline in the pharmaceutical and automotive industries in the 20th century (City of Kalamazoo, 2013). The population of the city has decreased 13% since 1970, while its per-capita income at the time of our study was less than two thirds the national level.

To operate more efficiently, the city’s police and fire departments merged in 1982, with officers trained in police and firefighting duties. An official for the department told our focus group, “The city manager was the impetus behind it. He pushed the idea because we were in very extreme financial straits.”

Prior to the merger, the city had 160 police officers and 140 firefighters. Yet, an official told our focus group, “We had seven or eight police officers on a shift, but more firefighters [on a shift], even though crime was very high.” Upon implementation of the merger, the city eliminated 21 positions largely through incentives for early retirement. Nevertheless, the official noted the department has managed to put more officers on patrol: “Now we staff 10 in the fire stations and, depending on the time of day, we’ll have 18 public-safety officers on the road…The biggest benefit was getting more people on the streets.”

Since the merger, staffing levels have fallen short of initial projections. “The first studies said we’d need 356 public-safety officers,” an official said, “but it was never close to that level. The highest was perhaps 270, [or] 280.” In 2013, the department had 243 public-safety officers.

All Kalamazoo public-safety officers have 4-year degrees as well as Michigan Police-Officer, Firefighter I and II, and Medical First Responder certifications. Kalamazoo has used a private ambulance company for emergency medical services. It has dispatched officers to assist on emergency medical services calls but recently stopped dispatching fire trucks for such calls because of the cost of doing so.

Calls for police service are the most frequent among the department’s types of calls, perhaps in part because of Kalamazoo’s relatively high level of serious crime. Kalamazoo has had the second highest crime rate of the seven communities we examined, a rate of about 1.5 times that for the nation. Kalamazoo reports about 90,000 calls for service annually. Its approximately 1,800 fire calls are divided into four categories—working, cooking, vehicle, and outdoor trash or grass—of roughly equal numbers.

Kalamazoo may present the clearest case among our case studies of contingency theory influences on the origins and persistence of a public-safety department. The agency quickly consolidated when the city was in a financial crisis and has remained in “fit” with the community and its contingency for efficient service by finding the model to require even less manpower than originally projected.

Sunnyvale, California

Sunnyvale is the seventh most populous city of the San Francisco Bay area. It is one of the cities comprising Silicon Valley and headquarters to several large firms, including Yahoo! Inc.; it also hosts major facilities for several aerospace and defense companies (City of Sunnyvale, 2013). In addition to its residential population, businesses draw more than 50,000 workers from beyond city limits.

Sunnyvale incorporated in 1912 and soon organized a volunteer fire department (City of Sunnyvale, 2005). In 1914, the city established five departments, including a Department of Public Health and Safety with both police and fire services. Sunnyvale continued its combination of paid police officers and firefighters through the 1940s (City of Sunnyvale, 2005). Adoption of a new city charter in 1949 and hiring of a city manager led to discussion of how to improve public safety, particularly fire safety. The city council considered creating a separate fire department, but the city manager favored a department of public safety for fiscal reasons.

The new Department of Public Safety, created in 1950, included several police officers who became public-safety officers and several newly hired public-safety officers (City of Sunnyvale, 2005). Altogether, about two dozen public-safety employees served a city that had grown to a population of nearly 10,000 across 6 square miles.

The department grew as the city did. By 2013, it had 198 sworn personnel, 81 support personnel, and more than 50 volunteers serving more than 140,000 persons across 22 square miles. It has required police, fire, and emergency medical technician training of all recruits. Officers on police duties have worked four 11-hr days followed by four off-days and must complete an additional nine days of training each year. Fire operations personnel have worked a traditional 24-hr shift schedule. Over time, the department has adopted many innovations in police and fire services evolving elsewhere (City of Sunnyvale, 2005). These have included a SWAT team, a crisis-negotiation team, a mobile field force, canine and emergency medical dispatch units, and a hazardous materials response team.

Sunnyvale has had a relatively low crime rate, particularly for a city its size. In addition to having the third lowest crime rate among the seven communities we considered, in 2012, it had the lowest crime rate among the 13 California cities between 140,000 and 160,000 in population. It has received a large number of fire service calls, more than 7,000 each year. Only 2% of these calls were for fires, while more than two thirds were for emergency medical services. These numbers have been comparable to other Bay Area fire agencies.

In FY 2015, the department had a budget of US$79 million, including US$29 million for police field operations, US$26 million for fire field operations, and US$19 million for special operations (with the remainder going for administrative and other costs). In FY 2012, its per-capita public-safety costs of US$519 were below those for nearby cities of Palo Alto (US$950), Mountain View (US$688), and Santa Clara (US$662; Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, 2012).

Because of the department’s long history as a “public-safety” agency, it has recently faced little challenge, a leader told us, in developing an appropriate “culture.” This, he said, is because of the age and reputation of the department; all candidates “are interviewed knowing they’ll be public-safety officers.” He acknowledged some cultural considerations in hiring, noting, “Many believe you can make a police officer a firefighter, but it’s more difficult to make a firefighter a police officer. Police officers are used to taking charge individually while firefighters are used to working in a team environment led by a company officer who provides direction.” This has led the department to seek candidates who are flexible.

Contingencies appear to have been at the heart of the Sunnyvale consolidation and its persistence, both from the city’s need to upgrade its fire services at the time of the agency’s origin to its ability to provide police and fire services in recent years at a lower per-capita cost than neighboring agencies. Nevertheless, some institutional influences on the agency appear to have been evident as well. These have included its fostering of a public-safety “culture” that blends both the individualism of police officers and the teamwork of firefighters.

Discussion

Willis and Mastrofski (2011, p. 317) found contingency theories to be “the dominant theoretical perspective on the processes leading to the emergence and spread of innovations in police organizations” but suggested that institutional theories can explain whether an organization later “prospers or suffers” (p. 318). Our case studies show some evidence of this in consolidated public-safety agencies as well. These agencies typically originated in the need to provide services that had been lacking or to provide such services more efficiently. Over time, some of these agencies also conformed to institutional norms, such as those of accreditation agencies for police and fire agencies, or even developed their own institutional values and beliefs that the agencies deliberately maintain.

Rather than viewing these communities as having origins in contingency influences and maintenance through institutional influences, we might best view them on a continuum with contingency influences at one end and institutional influences at another. On such a continuum, Kalamazoo may provide the clearest example of contingency influences among the agencies we have studied. It adopted the public-safety model in a time of constrained resources and has kept it as the city’s population has continued to decrease. It adopted the model more quickly than the other agencies we have considered. It has found the model to be even more effective than anticipated, with manpower levels falling below both what was projected and what the city previously had in police and fire departments combined. At the same time, Kalamazoo has conformed to some institutional standards and influences. It has required 4-year degrees as well as police officer, firefighter, and medical first responder certification of its officers. The presence of so many other public-safety departments in Michigan may also have provided institutional support for the Kalamazoo agency.

Sunnyvale offers another relatively clear example of consolidation in response to contingencies. The agency originated in response to the need to provide firefighting services to a growing city. It has stayed in “fit” with its community in several ways. It continues to provide its services at a lower cost than its neighbors incur. It has developed capabilities needed for a rapidly expanding metropolitan community. It has achieved a lower crime rate than other California cities of its size. At the same time, the adoption of capabilities used by other agencies may have been a response to institutional influences as well. The department’s concern with hiring applicants who can support a public-safety “culture,” or can work between individualistic police norms and firefighting teamwork norms, may have also reflected institutional concerns unique to public-safety agencies.

Ashwaubenon provides another example of consolidation in response to community need but one that may have conformed to some institutional influences at its inception as well. The department evolved in response to the need to provide police and fire services to its community. Yet it took several years to form and was completed only after local officials visited other public-safety departments and learned how these models could be applied to their village. The many different forms of provision for police and fire services in the Green Bay area may have also helped promote institutional acceptance for a public-safety agency in Ashwaubenon.

Aiken also shows some evidence of responding to a continuing contingency. This is perhaps most evident in its provision of police and fire services at a lower per-capita cost than a nearby comparable community and in its maintenance of a lower crime rate than other cities of its size in its state. That is, the agency has kept in “fit” with its community by responding to a common demand for better public safety at a lower cost. At the same time, institutional influences on the organization have been evident as well. The agency sought to achieve CALEA certification and to improve its fire services rating, conforming to both police and fire standards of outside institutions. It also sought to develop its own public-safety “culture” and officers who are sensitive to such a culture and its blend of police and fire cultures.

East Grand Rapids also shows some evidence in responding to contingencies, particularly in the efficiencies its agency claims, providing police and fire service with fewer personnel than a comparable community. Yet institutional influences on the agency may have been stronger. These may be evident in the three decades the city required from initial consideration to implementation of the idea and particularly in the long time it took to develop a public-safety “culture” and the efforts the department makes to maintain that culture and its values. East Grand Rapids, like Kalamazoo, can also draw institutional lessons and support from the large number of public-safety agencies in Michigan.

Glencoe offers more evidence of institutional influences. Its desire to more efficiently use resources reflects some contingency influences as does its provision of police and fire services at a lower per-capita cost than in a neighboring community. Nevertheless, the desire for efficiency in a community that is highly affluent and that has led the way in other elements of professionalization in government, such as when it became the first Illinois municipality to adopt a council-manager form of government, suggests some institutional influences as well. Glencoe has continued to respond to institutional influences, as it did when becoming the first community to achieve accreditation from both the CALEA and the CAFI.

Highland Park may offer the clearest example of institutional influences on the public-safety organization among the communities we study. Although interrupted, its tradition of public-safety consolidation dates to its origins. The community took many years to fully implement the current model for its professional public-safety workers who slowly replaced single-discipline police and fire workers. Highland Park has fostered a public-safety “culture” among recruits, employing an axiologist to help select them. It has achieved CALEA accreditation to conform to police institutional standards and trains its officers to provide any police, fire, or emergency medical service needed at any given time anywhere in the town. The agency has responded to at least one contingency but, from a historical perspective of public-safety agencies, has turned it on its head, spending more per capita than other agencies to provide the greater service its residents have demanded.

Conclusion

Our research finds evidence for both contingency and institutional theories in explaining the origins and sustainment of consolidated public-safety agencies. Like Wilson (2006, p. 108), who “illustrated the utility of combining contingency and institutional theories in an integrated open systems framework,” we find that relying only on contingency or institutional theory may oversimplify the complexity of these agencies and their environment. These agencies appear to have interacted with their environments as open systems (D. Katz & Kahn, 1966; Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Thompson, 1967), responding to both task and institutional demands. Future research could consider the value of integrating open-systems theories in explaining the form and function of these organizations.

The most important lesson for policy makers in this research may be that the circumstances traditionally leading to consolidation may not sustain such agencies. Indeed, in our case study analysis of communities that have undergone deconsolidation (Wilson & Grammich, 2015), we describe how several communities that consolidated their public-safety agencies were later unable to correct “misfit” of these agencies and ultimately deconsolidated. The agencies we describe here have maintained “fit” over time. Several have done so by continuing to deliver the savings and efficiencies envisioned from the start. Yet all have had to respond to institutional influences, including influences traditionally cited as reasons not to consolidate or even to deconsolidate. This provides some support for Willis and Mastrofski’s (2011) contention that contingency theories are critical to explain the adoption of “innovation” in police organizations but that institutional theories determine whether an organization later “prospers or suffers” because of it. Perhaps most intriguing is how these agencies, most of which originated in response to task demands, work, as other organizations have done (C. M. Katz, 2001; Suchman, 1995), to promote or create their own “culture” of standards to promote their legitimacy.

This study is limited by the weaknesses of a case study method. Case studies permit us to explore in depth the reasons these agencies consolidated and maintained consolidation. Nevertheless, the small number of communities we explored limits the number, strength, and generalizability of our conclusions. While we sought to create a purposive sample to illustrate the range of issues these agencies must address, our sample is not random. The level of detail available at each site also varied, further limiting the lessons we can draw. Other methods at these sites may reveal other lessons. Future research with a greater number of agencies can help formulate and test hypotheses on such agencies.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies should not be considered an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Justice nor the authors. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by grant number 2011-CK-WX-K011, awarded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice.

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