My post concerning the Warwick Beacon’s look into Warwick firefighter pay/contracts has generated some commentary regarding the RIPEC report (mentioned in Russell Moore’s story) that found:

On average, [a RIPEC] report showed that Rhode Islanders spend about $6.24 on fire services for every $1,000 of personal income, or just under double the national average of $3.21 per $1,000 of income.

Those who doubt these numbers seem to have these questions (cribbed directly from actual comments):
1) EMS services are included for Rhode Island but not the other states. By including EMS, you couldn’t even compare Providence to Worcester- two very similar sized cities, but Worcester’s EMS is provided by UMass Hospital, and Providence’s by the Fire Department.
2) The cost represents the total cost of fire protection in RI, meaning sprinkler systems, alarms and other additions, not just the actual fire department budgets.
3) Belief that pension costs are included in the RI costs but not in those for other states.
All the RIPEC report says about it’s methodology is:

Fire Protection comprises expenditures for the prevention, avoidance and suppression of fires and for the provision of ambulance, medical, rescue or auxiliary services when provided by fire protection agencies.

To be clear, I’d like more particulars myself. RIPEC appears to have used data taken directly from U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Government Finances, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (for personal income data) as well as their own calculations. Based on the Census Bureau’s explanation of their methodology, the data is provided by the states. (Right now, I don’t have the time to weave through the tables myself–and the links I provided are my best guess). All that being said, here are my thoughts on the 3 main contentions.
1) Whether cities and towns pay for EMS or not is not as relevant as some think. Having tax dollars pay for EMS is still a governmental (taxpayer/resident) choice. Just because some don’t cover EMS via taxes doesn’t mean it should be excluded from a comparison of tax dollars spent on fire/safety services. Those are real dollars no matter what column on the spreadsheet you want to put them in. Don’t let the inconsistent accounting methodology obscure the fact that other cities and towns in other states appear able to provide EMS services through private companies or hospitals and not through taxpayer supported fire departments.
2) It is probably true, given the brief explanation by RIPEC, that they include expenditures for fire suppression (sprinkler systems, etc.) the state paid to have installed in government buildings (for instance). There can’t really be any doubt that much of that expenditure is a direct result of government over-reaction to the Station Night Club fire. We all know that small businesses have screamed that they can’t afford to pay for the new requirements. Unsurprisingly, local governments didn’t because, well, they had the money, right? (Ours….)
3) There is no way of knowing whether pension costs were included or not without the raw data.
I’m sure this won’t satisfy RIPEC‘s critics, though I wonder if they have similar reservations about the rest of RIPEC’s analysis regarding other areas of government expenditures?