[Interview] Six Years After Choo Miae Launched Fire Service Nationalization, Funding Solution Remains Incomplete

Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Miae recently faced backlash over her remark describing fire-service funding as a “fiscal drain.” Her connection to fire-service funding dates back six years. In 2020, when she was leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, Choo pushed to make firefighters national civil servants, saying the disparity in local governments’ fiscal self-reliance meant firefighters’ working conditions varied from one region to another and needed to be improved. The aim was to change a situation in which firefighters sometimes had to pay for their own safety gloves and to strengthen the state’s responsibility for fire services that protect people’s lives and safety.

Six years later, Choo, having moved from party leader to Gyeonggi governor, found herself facing the nationalization of the fire service that she had once championed. This time, she was not a politician advocating for the policy but the head of a local government that bears a substantial share of fire-service funding. Her “fiscal drain” remark, which drew attention during a parliamentary audit on October 13, came at the intersection of her past and present roles.

In response to a question from People Power Party lawmaker Kwon Young-jin, Choo referred to Gyeonggi Province’s fire-service funding burden and said, “As you said, fire services seem to be the biggest headache—a fiscal drain for Gyeonggi.”

She intended to point out that Gyeonggi Province was spending about 1.1 trillion won on fire services because national funding was insufficient. But she was criticized after her words were seen as portraying fire services, which protect people’s lives and safety, as a financial burden. As the controversy grew, Choo apologized on October 17 at the funeral of the late Fire Lieutenant Kim Jinseok, who died in the line of duty in a fire at a large factory in Ojeong-gu, Bucheon. After apologizing again at a parliamentary audit by the National Assembly’s Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee on October 19, she met with fire-service union representatives in the governor’s office on October 20 and personally apologized to them.

Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Miae apologizes for her remarks during a meeting with officials from the firefighters' union in her office on the 20th. Provided by Gyeonggi Province.

Behind the remark is a funding structure for fire services that has barely changed since firefighters became national civil servants. In 2026, national funding accounts for just 10.7% of the total 8.5967 trillion won in fire-service funding. That is even lower than the 11% share in 2015, when firefighters were local civil servants. Although their employment status has changed to national civil servants, government funding has not improved over the past decade.

Gyeonggi Province faces an even tougher situation. Under its second supplementary budget for 2026, national funding accounts for just 921 billion won, or 7.7%, of the 1.1973 trillion won in personnel expenses for firefighters. This is below the national average. The Fire Safety Grant Tax for next year is also expected to fall 27.6% from this year, inevitably increasing the burden on Gyeonggi Province.

Choo stresses that the funding structure itself needs to be overhauled. The Fire Safety Grant Tax depends heavily on tobacco-related taxes, she says, so a decline in smoking resulting from the government’s anti-smoking policies could make it difficult to secure funding. In response, Gyeonggi Province has proposed redirecting the local education tax portion of the tobacco consumption tax, which is scheduled to expire, to the local resource and facilities tax allocated to fire services, and is working to introduce a relevant bill.

The purpose of the nationalization of the fire service that Choo championed six years ago was clear: people’s safety and firefighters’ working conditions should not depend on a region’s financial circumstances. Now, the state must take responsibility not only for firefighters’ employment status but also for funding. Attention is focused on whether the controversy surrounding the “fiscal drain” remark will go beyond a politician’s verbal misstep and help bring about a national funding system in keeping with the purpose of making firefighters national civil servants.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.