Funding to finish building Tulsa’s fire training center may shift from a public safety tax to a Vision renewal.
The fire department may meet with the city’s Vision task force to talk about the training center. Deputy Fire Chief Andy Teeter said a completed training center will save the city money.
"The savings not only comes through your return on investment, it also comes back through injury reduction, efficiency in your crew, insurance premium reduction," Teeter said. "We're able to show more training and reduce our insurance rates."
The first phase of the training center is complete, but three more are planned. The goal is getting agencies across the U.S. to pay to use it.
"Those funds are what maintain and then eventually improve the training center so that the City of Tulsa isn't paying light bills, paying every time we have to put a new roof on something or build another prop," Teeter said.
Another possible benefit is using the finished training center as a metro fire academy where recruits are tuition-paying Tulsa Community College students for three months.
"And then we only have them on the payroll for three months instead of six months while they're on their training," Teeter said. "Then they go out to a fire company quicker and on the street quicker, and that saves us that money and we're able to get boots on the street faster."
There are three phases left to build, which include ways to simulate almost any fire or rescue scenario. Those phases will cost an estimated total of $20 million.
