County Votes Down Plan To Replace Fire Department

Based on “scary” cost projections, the Board of supervisors decided today against pursuing the idea of dropping a firefighting contract with the California Department of Forestry and creating an independent county fire department.

Board members reviewed a 33-page study by the county Executive Office comparing the costs of contracting with Cal Fire — which the county has done since 1946 — and the costs of operating a county-run fire department, a la the Orange County Fire Authority.

According to the report, the first-year expense of converting would be $58.6 million more than what the county currently allocates in discretionary revenue to pay Cal Fire — about $40 million.

Executive Office analyst Bob Tremaine detailed a list of new expenses the county would have to absorb in making the switch, drawing on the experiences of Orange and San Bernardino counties.

“We would have to add some costs that don’t get put into the Cal Fire contract,” Tremaine said. “There would be higher overhead costs associated with new employees. The pension liability is a very significant issue.”

He said the county would have the flexibility to institute a retirement plan that takes into account its budgetary needs. But even under the best circumstances, the pension obligations would be a long-term burden that wouldn’t be eased without an economic turnaround.

“We’ve seen scary numbers from our consultants,” Tremaine told the board. “Our actuaries project … (the county) could be looking at an overall cost of $500 million to $600 million in (new) pension liability over five years.”

The county’s current unfunded pension obligations exceed $700 million.

According to the report, the county’s costs would be offset by payments from cities that currently utilize Cal Fire’s services under county auspices.

However, the start-up and long-term expenses of salaries and health benefits for the estimated 1,000 firefighters and support personnel needed for a stand-alone county fire department would pose daunting budgetary challenges, the report concludes.

The county and its partner cities own all but nine of the 91 fire stations operated by Cal Fire. But assuming the state retains its stations, the county would have to cough up more than $14 million to build and staff replacement stations in Anza, west Riverside and Sage, according to the report.

The issue of gravitating to an independent fire authority came up in May when Supervisor Jeff Stone complained about administrative cost increases that Cal Fire planned to impose on the county.

The agency has since identified ways to minimize the additional costs.

“This (type of study) is a good exercise that we should do every three to five years to ensure citizens are getting a bang for their buck from the state,” Stone said today.

Despite the current impracticality of changing, he said the county should have “a transition plan on hand” to facilitate converting to a stand- alone fire department if the need arises.

The supervisor also asked Cal Fire to consider a pilot project of putting paramedics on motorcycles to save money and time, noting that dispatching an engine crew along with paramedics and an ambulance in response to a medical aid call is a waste.

“There are more innovative ways to utilize resources in these more challenging times,” Stone said.

The county and Cal Fire are in the initial stages of hammering out a new five-year contract.

“The Cal Fire brass pays a lot of attention to us,” county Executive Officer Bill Luna said. “We appreciate that they take the comments of the board seriously.”