Task This month at the county Quorum Court meeting (where the elected officials

Task
This month at the county Quorum Court meeting (where the elected officials discuss capital budget items), you hear a presentation by the fire chief and the EMS chief about the need to invest in a new fire engine and a new mass casualty unit for the county. The fire chief has supported you in the past and partnered with you on emergency management decisions. He has also supported the hiring of your newest staff member, and without his support the vote would not have gone through.
The EMS chief, on the other hand, has been a problem. He has caused you significant problems during past exercises and has complained to your elected official about you and your personnel. He has raised concerns in public in front of customers and is a difficult personality to deal with.
The county is in desperate need of a mass casualty unit. There are several large events each year in the county that bring in crowds of 50,000 people. The crime rate has also been increasing over the last 5 years.
In contrast, the fire department is well resourced and adding another engine will have a limited impact on utility. However, the addition of the engine will lower ISO rates and has the potential of lowering the community’s fire insurance costs by $50 per year per house.
After the presentation, the Quorum Court turns to you and asks you to determine which resource they should invest in and to justify your decision.
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to apply critical thinking skills and the resource allocation principles learned in this unit to a real-world scenario. Many decisions are a battle between ethics and obligations because, as the emergency manager, you are friends with a lot of people and relationships are how you survive. You have asked for favors and likely owe favors in the form of support. This makes your job incredibly challenging. This assignment is a dilemma — a situation where there are equally difficult solutions.
End State
Identify which resource would be the better investment, and back up your decision using economic theories and principles learned in this course. Specifically, you need to convince me, the elected official, that investing in your choice will not come back and harm my potential for reelection in the future. Be sure to discuss the reasoning behind your decisions, including the pros and cons of each option.