(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Yang Jeong-woo = As Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Mi-ae's remarks about 'firefighting financial straw' became controversial, the issue of firefighting finances, which has been criticized for the large concentration of local government budgets even after the transition of firefighters to national positions, is receiving attention again.
At the National Assembly audit held for Gyeonggi-do on the 13th, Governor Chu caused controversy by saying, "Firefighting is like a financial straw that causes the biggest headache," while mentioning local government financial issues and the budget for national firefighters.
According to 'Issues and Issues' titled 'Is the purpose of converting firefighters to national positions being achieved?' published by the National Assembly Research Service on the 18th in January of this year, six years have passed since the conversion of firefighters to national positions in April 2020, but most of the burden of the fire service budget is borne by local governments.
Since the transition to national status, the firefighting budget distributed from the national budget to local areas has increased, but the national budget accounts for only about 10% of the total firefighting budget.
The share of national funding in 2019 was about 7%, but increased to 11.5% in 2020 after firefighters were converted to national service, and rose to 14.9% in 2021. However, it began to decline from 2022, and last year, the proportion of national funds amounted to only 10.7% of the total.
Most of the labor costs of national firefighters are also borne by local governments.
As of 2025, the total budget for firefighting labor costs is KRW 6.3632 trillion, of which only KRW 547.6 billion (8.6%) is allocated for labor costs from the fire safety grant tax, which is a national fund.
According to the Local Autonomy Act, firefighting affairs are regulated as autonomous affairs of local governments. The Local Autonomy Act provides for local fire prevention, warning, suppression, investigation, and rescue/first-aid as one of the duties of local governments.
Accordingly, part of the right to appoint firefighters is delegated to the city/provincial governor, and the fire department headquarters is also placed under the direct control of the city/provincial governor. Mayors and provincial governors also have the authority to command and supervise firefighting activities.
Although firefighters are a national position under the law, there is criticism that they are only a 'half state position'.
The Legislative Research Service said, "The nature of the work is a key criterion in determining who will bear the burden of financial resources. Accordingly, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (currently the Ministry of Planning and Budget) is taking the position that firefighting affairs are local affairs and are handled by local governments (city/provincial firefighting headquarters), so local governments should bear the financial burden."
At the same time, he pointed out, "In terms of personnel and command authority, there are concerns that the effectiveness of command authority at disaster sites is reduced due to the lack of actual authority of the National Fire Agency in manpower management."
Of course, since the transition of firefighters to national service, there have been achievements such as an increase in the number of firefighters and improved treatment.
The number of firefighters, which was 48,000 in 2017, increased to 66,800 in 2024, and the number of people in charge per firefighter also decreased from 1,091 to 766 over the same period.
However, there is a gap between large cities and regions in the number of people in charge per firefighter, and there are still regional differences in support expenses for firefighters, such as clothing costs, consignment training costs, and health check-up costs.
The Legislative Research Service mentioned strengthening the state's financial responsibility as an improvement task and emphasized, "In order to make the state's responsibility substantive, it is necessary to strengthen the system that supports labor costs with national funds," and added, "It is necessary to ensure that the financial capacity of local governments secured through alleviating the burden of labor costs is invested in upgrading fire service services, such as replacing old equipment and modernizing government buildings."
In addition, the establishment of a fire development fund was also proposed to secure financial resources in the fire department. He suggested the clarification of the national and local responsibility structures for firefighting affairs through the revision of the Local Autonomy Act, saying that the reality that the scope of firefighting affairs has expanded beyond fire suppression to encompass social and natural disasters needs to be reflected in the classification of firefighting affairs.
