Palm Springs Shuts Down Jail And Fire Station To Save Money

Palm Springs will shut down the city’s jail and a fire station to help reduce a projected $7.7 million deficit, city officials said today.

The city announced at its council meeting Wednesday that it plans to reduce the number of police officers by nine, and fire department jobs by six, along with 20 non-safety employees, said City Manager David Ready.

But the Palm Springs Police Department hopes to avoid laying off any officers by relying on attrition through retirements, eliminating vacant positions and using a federal grant, said Officer Melissa Desmarais.

“Our greatest concern is the public safety, and our priority is to have officers out in the field,” Desmarais said.

She said the closure of the jail will have an impact on the number of officers on the streets.

“That’s going to impact the city in that officers are going to be pulled off the streets for driving time to transport prisoners out to Indio,” Desmarais said, adding that the cumulative drive time to the Indio sheriff’s jail is about an hour.

The closure will also impact the Desert Hot Springs and Cathedral City police departments, which also booked prisoners at the Palm Springs Jail, she said.

She said the cuts were not popular, but “we understand we are in a crisis right now,” Desmarais said.

Ready said the cuts were unavoidable.

“Over the last two years, we’ve removed 37 positions that were non- safety because obviously the safety services have always been the prioritized city function,” said City Manger David Ready. “That’s how we dealt with the $12 million deficit, but because of the additional loss of revenues … there has to be a combination of safety and non-safety.”

The city has seen a reduction in tax revenues because of the economic recession.

Fire station No. 5 on Bolero Road will be shut down because it handles the least amount — only 9 percent — of all calls in the city, according to Ready.

Most of those calls were medical, he said, adding that American Medical Response, an ambulance company, will move into that station.

Fire Chief Blake Goetz wrote in a statement to council members that the closure of the station will increase response times to that area by two to three minutes.

He suggested the station be closed by May 1, which would save the city $105,000 for the last two months of the 2009-10 fiscal year.

“As difficult as closing a fire station is to us all, I believe that we must consider this option in light of the current and expected budget projections,” Goetz wrote.

Goetz noted his department has been able to save more than $400,000 annually over the past five years by the reorganization of fire administration.