The state has saved a lot of money over the years by only making minimum financing available to the rescue board. The agency's need for investment has now reached a level where the rescue system needs to be either contracted or replaced with a cheaper version inside the next decade.
“Looking at the long perspective – ten years and more – we will probably have to rethink our rescue model as there is simply not enough money. We need a social contract on what that new model could be,” Director of the Rescue Board Kuno Tammearu told journalists at a press conference at the interior ministry yesterday.
Tammearu's utterance echoed what the interior ministry has been aware of for some time: Estonia will not be able to afford a fully professional rescue service, that has become a rarity elsewhere in Europe, for much longer.
The fact was clearly highlighted by a financial study presented yesterday that analyzed state budget financing of the board. The report suggests the agency has been forced to save on salary advance and investments to make ends meet. In other words: modernization of the fleet and equipment has been continually postponed.
While the situation is under control for the moment, continued modest financing of Estonia's third largest state agency will result in a €148.7 million deficit and a hopelessly unmanageable investments backlog.
The only cure would be an aggressive austerity scenario: while rescue workers would be entitled to the national average salary advance, staff cuts would amount to 30 percent and the number of rescue vehicles would be reduced by 25 percent, with period of use of equipment extended by half.
“The main conclusion is that if additional financing is not found for the agency, it could result in notable reduction of the volume and availability of services,” said Olavi Grünvald, consultant at survey author Finantsakadeemia OÜ.
How did the agency come to this crisis in 20 years? Minister of Internal Affairs Hanno Pevkur said that the reasons are historical. “We are currently addressing past debts – a part of services have been maintained with very low costs,” Pevkur said.
He gave as an example the Kiviõli commando and its rotten floorboards. “It is a historical burden we are now faced with, courtesy of inconsistent investments.”
To get a clear picture of the situation, one has to look at figures. Authors of the report say that sub-par financing is reflected if only in the fact that the agency's budget has been growing slower than the consumer price index, GDP, or state budget tax revenue for the past seven years.
At the same time, a lot of the rescue board's expenses are fixed. The board was allocated 60 million from the state budget this year, 38 million of which will be spent on wages. The latter have grown slower than the national average: the board's average gross salary was 1,009 euros and that of a rescuer 898 euros in 2015.
And this is the first bottleneck: 54 percent of rescue workers are currently between 40 and 59 years old, with a large number set to retire in coming years. Salaries need to be competitive for the board to be able to find replacements.
The second, even more important, bottleneck concerns equipment, a lot of which needs to be replaced after a certain period of time. Ladder trucks cost half a million euros, while an ordinary fire engine goes for 360,000 euros.
Estonia has 72 professional rescue commandos after the 2012 reform the maintenance of each of which costs on average 550,000 euros annually.
Even though the network of commandos has been subject to reform for years, there are still those that see few enough calls to make each one hugely expensive. For example, every call of the Nõva commando in Northwestern Estonia cost on average €3,697 in 2015.
“The report confirmed what we've known for some time: the rescue board is not sustainable in its current form for long,” director Tammearu said.
Where to find money? The report points out that other European countries have financed rescue services through additional taxes, rescue funds, or even public lotteries.
More likely choices for Estonia include constricting the network of professional rescue commandos, settling for less stringent service parameters, or using a lot more volunteers. The latter model is successfully being employed in Finland.
The exact face of the rescue service in some years will depend on a social contract, discussions concerning which will hopefully take off this year.
“We would definitely like to see broad-based discussion on what we're going to do,” minister Hanno Pevkur said.
Serious work should be launched after the 2017 local elections, once the new local governments network is in place. The ministry hopes to introduce the new rescue service models by November of that year.
“I want new local governments to sincerely and decisively participate in figuring out how they could contribute to ensuring availability of local rescue services,” Pevkur said.
Major changes to the system will be held off until new local governments settle in. Pevkur said that the simplest avenue of cutting costs is to reduce the number of components that require investments: fire engines and buildings.
There is no danger of the rescue service disappearing in some areas in the coming years. “The quality of the service could fall in some areas; however, we will provide the service,” the minister promised.
Pevkur added that he will apply for additional funds for the board in next year's state budget and enter it into the 2018 state budget strategy.
However, staff cuts have already reached a critical level. “If you ask me where is the last straw, I will tell you it is already here concerning policemen, rescue workers, border guards, and passport desk officials.”