The fire department will spend the remainder of 2017 putting the finishing touches on its strategic plan for 2018–2020.
After three years of completing numerous goals, the Cherry Hill Fire Department is ready to move forward with a whole new list of goals as it creates its newest strategic plan.
The fire department is in the process of developing a strategic plan for 2018 through 2020. The department has spent the last few months gathering information on areas it needs to focus on in the years ahead and developing a draft plan for the Cherry Hill Board of Fire Commissioners to review.
“This is one of the tools of the toolbox that the accreditation process wants you to do,” Fire Chief Thomas Kolbe said. “You always want to have on paper goals and objectives.”
The strategic plan will have multiple components. Part of the document will detail the history of the Cherry Hill Fire District, give an overview of the fire department and detail the department’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the year ahead.
Later in the document, goals for the next three years will be listed. The goals will be broken into various categories, such as office of the fire chief, field command office, emergency medical services, management support, training and safety, capital assets and more.
The fire department creates a new strategic plan every three years based upon the goals it met in its previous plan and how the department has evolved. The fire department achieved most of the goals it set out in its 2015–2017 strategic plan, including receiving accredited status from the Commission on Fire Accreditation International, becoming an Insurance Service Office Class 1 fire department, developing a succession management plan, the purchase of a new battalion chief’s vehicle, the institution of a task force for active shooter training, developing a community education program with the township’s elementary schools, and more. The department’s 2015–2017 strategic plan is available to view on the Cherry Hill Township website.
“We were pretty successful with a lot of the things we wanted to do,” Kolbe said.
A few action items included in the previous strategic plan will be carried over into the 2018–2020 plan. The relocation of Station №5 from its location near the Church Road circle is an item the fire department will continue working on in the years ahead. The fire department will also be completing its heavy apparatus replacement program over the next three years, with the replacement of a new fire engine, rescue truck and ladder truck.
As part of the 2018–2020 strategic plan creation process, the fire department released a survey in August asking residents for their feedback on how it operates. The survey included questions about response time, the level of service, what community programs residents want to see and general feedback to include in the strategic plan.
Kolbe said the feedback from residents was mostly positive. On a question asking residents what their service experience was with the fire department, 85 percent of respondents rated their experience as excellent and about 13 percent as good.
“We take the information and try to make some improvements and changes based on what they are saying,” Kolbe said. “If we put it out there and they answer it, they expect us to respond to it.”
Information is also gathered from the community leaders, bargaining unit leaders and employees. All of the information is used to drum up new goals and ideas for what direction the fire department wants to go.
Residents will be able to view the fire department’s 2018–2020 strategic plan after the Cherry Hill Board of Fire Commissioners endorses it at a future meeting. Kolbe said a draft plan was presented in late September to the board for review.
Residents can get information on the strategic plan and other aspects of the Cherry Hill Fire Department at one of two civilian forum meetings the department is hosting on Wednesday, Oct. 18 from 7 to 9 p.m. and Friday, Oct. 20, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. The forums will be held at the central command building at 1100 Marlkress Road. Attendees can get information on the strategic plan as well as other aspects of the fire department.
“The mission of that is to just go over our fire and EMS operations, talk about our accreditation process and our ISO evaluation,” Kolbe said.
The fire department will also have some of its equipment available for attendees to view. For more information on the meetings, visit www.cherryhill-nj.com/civicalerts.aspx?aid=968.
