Fire Rescue Victoria costs soar: Wages hit $929m

Households and businesses will be hit with higher levies to help fund soaring FRV costs, which have hit $1.22 billion.

Fire Rescue Victoria’s employee costs have hit $929 million.

The cost of running Fire Rescue Victoria hit $1.22 billion, as the Allan Government prepares to crank up levies on household, farmers and other businesses to fund the soaring cost of it and other emergency services.

The Government tabled FRV’s 2023-24 annual report this week, after a four-month delay, which showed employee costs hit $929m, up from $887m in 2022-23 and $756m when FRV was formed in 2020-22.

The report shows the United Firefighters Union dominated service’s overtime bill reached $125 million, up from $104m in 2022-23, while travel and meal allowances costs hit $25m.

FRV also reported a December 2022 cyber attack forced it to crank up consultancy costs to $32m.

As far as performance goes the report showed FRV struggled to meet the benchmark of responding to 90 per cent of structural fires within seven minutes and 42 seconds, but still getting to 86 per cent of fires in that time.

The report also showed FRV struggled to meet CFA demand for staff, which it supplies under a secondment agreement between both services.

The number of FRV commanders, ACFOs and other career firefighters seconded to CFA fell from 262 in 2022-23 to 242 in 2023-24.

All CFA career staff must be seconded from Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV), which in turn must gain union approval on every aspect of how those CFA commanders and Assistant Chief Fire Officers (ACFOs) are managed – from occupational health and safety reporting to disputes, grievances and relief management.

Victoria’s Fire Services Implementation Monitor Niall Blair has previously warned the “consult and agree” clause in FRV’s enterprise agreement with the United Firefighters Union was “impeding agency interoperability and contributing to operational challenges such as the vacancy and relief issues experienced by CFA”.

Meanwhile the Government is charging ahead with the introduction of a $616m hike in fire services property levies to fund FRV and emergency services public servants, with just $50m of the extra revenue supporting emergency service volunteers.

The government has rebadged the FSPL as the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, increasing the amount collected from $1.033bn this financial year to $1.649bn in 2025-26 and then $1.8bn in 2026-27.