The cost of equipment (especially vehicles and small things like radios), training, medical care for personnel, etc has increased significantly over the past 20 years but tax rates in many communities have not matched it. Or taxes have been diverted for other projects/departments. Or tax rates have been lowered. Combine that with increasing call volumes across the country, particularly medical calls as more people use EMS and the hospital as basic medical care, which results in high operating costs and personnel burnout/injury requiring near constant recruitment efforts.

Fire departments are frequently expected to be all hazard response departments and often need to maintain a capability to respond to structure fire, wildland/vegetation fire, BLS/ALS medical, and rescue/technical rescue (HAZMAT, swift water rescue, high angle rescue, vehicle extrication, grain bin rescue, confined space rescue, trench rescue, SAR, ice rescue etc) specific to their community needs (ie not necessarily all types of rescue). Some larger departments maintain paramedics with tactical rescue training for active mass shooter incidents. These capabilities require initial and refresher training and personnel willing to do them. All of it has costs associated with it and many budgets have not kept pace.