OCFA: Cuts wildfire hand crew to save $1.7 million with $149 million in the bank

With $150 million in the bank, why is fire authority axing firefighters?

• The Orange County Fire Authority does have an “unreserved fund balance” of $149 million, according to its latest audit.
  
• the Fire Authority had 1,019 employees in 1999, and 1,122 in 2008. (So, not that many more people.)
• But its spending more than doubled over that period of time - from $119.3 million to $247.6 million.

The Fire Authority has plans for most of this money - including setting $66.3 million aside for capital projects, $28 million for its workers compensation self-insurance program, and $8.7 million to pay off debt, said Assistant Chief Lori Zeller (as she patiently walked us through the numbers).

So, Zeller says, the Fire Authority’s operating fund really only has $24.5 million at its disposal. And it won’t be tapped to smooth out the rough edges right now.

Zeller stresses that the Fire Authority is not eliminating this particular $1.7 million crew, but rather deferring its implementation. “Public safety is our number one priority so we are currently looking at alternatives such as using our reserve hand crew, using inmate crews, and mutual aid from our neighboring agencies,” she wrote in an email. “The full-time hand crew will be re-instated once it is economically feasible and we work through the same fiscal challenges everyone is facing.”
Info from: OC Register - Full story at Link
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Money troubles cut into firefighting resources

Despite recommendations to increase staff to fight wildfires, O.C. agencies find themselves having to cut back.

By KIMBERLY EDDS

The Orange County Register

Prospective members of the Orange County Fire Authority's new full-time 22-man hand crew – a rough-and-tumble crowd willing to do the backbreaking work of cutting fire lines – showed up to the department's Irvine headquarters in pressed suits and shined shoes for their oral board interviews.

The required written test was a distant memory. But instead of job offers last week, those who passed the interview got an economics lesson. The money just isn't there.

The crew, part of a series of recommendations approved after the 2007 Santiago fire to make the county's largest firefighting force better equipped for monster wildfires, is being put on hold to save $1.7 million in next year's budget. The part-time crew was disbanded earlier this year, leaving OCFA without a hand crew to call on.

A plan to bolster wildland engine crews from three to four firefighters is being delayed, even though the increase is recommend as minimum staffing levels by the National Fire Protection Association and touted by the Fire Authority as increasing firefighter safety and helping crews to snuff out fires before they rage out of control.

"We won't be able to respond as efficiently as we would be able to if we didn't defer those," OCFA Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion said.

At a time when America's police forces are literally counting bullets to save a buck, firefighters are tightening the belts on their turnouts as they try to ride out the roughest economic times since the 1970s.

The New York City Fire Department was making ends meet by closing several engine companies overnight, but as money has become even more limited, the department is considering closing 16 fire companies entirely, along with mothballing 30 ambulances. Volunteer fire departments make up the lion's share of America's firefighting force, but many, including those in Stamford, Conn., are flirting with bankruptcy.

A total of 1.4 million acres of California wildland transformed into scorched earth in 2008 as firestorms raged, chewing through nearly a quarter of all the acres burned in the United States last year.

Firefighting costs for the 2008 season have topped $1 billion. The population of California has more than tripled since 1950, with more than half of new homes being built in severe fire danger zones.

Massive firestorms that chase thousands from their homes and tax already weary firefighters are becoming the rule rather than the exception as more people move next to wilderness areas.

Harsh realities of the 2007 Santiago fire during which crews had to go it largely alone for hours if not days were met by the OCFA with 26 aggressive recommendations for $14.1 million in staffing and equipment, in addition to two new helicopters to replace their two Vietnam-era helicopters. "We're putting our money where our mouth is," said Concepcion in March 2008. The department fast-tracked ordering two Bell 412 helicopters at $21.6 million.

But before many of the recommendations were rolled out, the Freeway Complex fire ripped through Orange County last November, destroying 114 homes and 30,305 acres. Two years after the recommendations, unforgiving economics have forced OCFA department heads to cut 10 percent of their budgets. Positions have been frozen.

Janice Beasley, whose home near the mouth of Modjeska Canyon was destroyed in the Santiago Fire in October 2007, was displeased at news of the cutbacks.

"The help needs to go to our fire department," she said. "We didn't have enough help to begin with, and now this?"

The Santiago fire destroyed 15 homes in the canyon communities of Modjeska and Trabuco. Like many victims, the Beasleys have rebuilt or still are in the process of doing so. The family's 3-acre horse property on Santiago Canyon Road was destroyed by the arson-set Santiago fire.

For more than a year, the Beasleys have been living out of a trailer. They lost most of their possessions and relied on friends and neighbors for handouts.

Budget crisis or not, Beasley's anger at the cutbacks spilled out to include the announced closing of nearby Silverado Elementary School and other things see sees as community necessities.

"They need to cut the money at the top, from the salaries of the senators and the other politicians who continue to get raises," Beasley said. "My husband took a pay cut because of the poor economy – why not these people?"

The necessity of having a well-funded firefighting organization usually only is recognized when disaster strikes and immediately afterward, when the disaster still is fresh in the headlines, says Beasley.

"I'm doing everything I can, spending my own money, to make my home more fireproof," Beasley said. "But nothing is really fireproof. What we need are more firefighters. This doesn't make any sense to me."

In Santa Ana, a city of nearly 338,000, the Fire Department has chipped $2.7 million from its $54 million budget, pushing back training, holding vacant firefighting positions open and pulling firefighters from desk jobs and sending them back into the field. Six firefighters scheduled to go to paramedic school next month were told they would have to wait until next year. Overtime is being used to fill in for vacant spots, which saves money in benefits, but consecutive shifts can wear on firefighters. Santa Ana limits its firefighters to working 96 hours in a row.

"My biggest worry is overloading the firefighters," Fire Chief Mark Martin said. "I know they like the overtime, but I want to make sure they are able to do their job."

And the department's maintenance staff has been cut in half, leaving one man responsible for keeping all the fire trucks and engines running, along with all the tools, equipment and turnouts for more than 200 firefighters. "That's a lot for one person," Martin said, who just approved bringing in a firefighter on overtime to help out.

Fullerton is under a hiring freeze for all positions paid out of the general fund. To cut 3 percent from its $18 million budget, the city's fire department is delaying nonmandatory training and putting off replacing fire vehicles and building maintenance, Fullerton Fire Marshall Julie Kunze said.

And departments are taking suggestions.

"We're looking at every cost-cutting measure," Concepcion said. "We're going to consider everything."

Source article: OC register - Link