vtownmike, As current Team Leader and Instructor Trainer for 3 Public Safety Dive Teams, I have gone through and continue to go through bureaucracy and red tape, when it comes to operating a Dive Team for a County or City. I am what some would call a smart ass, or jerk some might say and I find it hard to bite my tongue. Now with that being said, I try to show the higher ups why it is more cost effective to have a Dive Team that is in house, instead of utilizing resources outside the district. As a Dive Shop Owner, who also does dive salvage, and located on the water where all our Dive Teams operate, it is easy for me to calculate cost as a private business of what it would cost for an operation. Now on the other side of things, being a Public Servant, former Deputy Sheriff & Police Officer, and currently a Fire Fighter & EMT, I have the added benefit of volunteering my services instead of charging for them. With the teams I operate and train, I find that one of the biggest reasons Departments hesitate in starting a team is the start up cost to train and equipped personnel. If an agency has a body of water in its district, then there is a need. But the cost effectiveness of starting a team or using outside resources is the biggest obstacle. My suggestion would be to do your homework and say investigate say in the last 20 years, what kind of need analysis your department has for a dive team. Then figure out what it would cost to hire a private team to do the same job. Then calculate the cost to start a team. The lesser cost option would be what I would focus on when presenting it to your department heads. Showing that you have done your research, and being able to back it up with analysis from the past, might give you an upper leg in the battle. Now with all that being said, remember this, there is more to it than just getting trained and doing the dives / operation. Insurance is a big deal when you set up a team, especially if said team operates under mutual aid for other departments. Last but not least, look into starting a 3rd party private team, then getting contracts through your area with Public Safety Departments to operate. This ideally is a great way of going to keep the bureaucracy out of it (Being my badge is shinier than yours syndrome / agency vs agency will always arise). The down side is the cost is usually all out of pocket, but with a contract you can usually earn some of it back. If you see a need for it, and are passionate about it, fight for it. PM me if you got any other questions, I can send you several examples of SOG's I have wrote for other teams to help them get started. You can use these SOG's to write your own to fit your teams needs. Hope this helps.
