San Carlos: Outsourcing police and fire protection services would save the city an estimated $3 million to $5.5 million

State firefighters and San Mateo County sheriff's deputies would respond to emergencies in San Carlos under a budget scenario proposed by the city manager.

Outsourcing police and fire protection services would save the city an estimated $3 million to $5.5 million, said City Manager Mark Weiss, who on late Friday released his "two paths" plan to close a $3.5 million deficit in the 2010-11 fiscal year budget.
The alternative, or other path, is to cut $3.5 million from the city's $28 million budget by, among other things, laying off eight full-time employees, closing the city's youth center and ending broadcasts of city council meetings. The cost-cutting proposals will be discussed at a community town hall meeting on Saturday.
Weiss said he prefers the outsourcing plan because the city needs to "do something bolder" than just tap reserve accounts and cut its general fund budget, as it has done each of the last 11 years.
"This approach, with this death by 1,000 cuts, is not sustainable," Weiss said Monday. "The organization and each department in it implodes. That will affect the whole of the city, including police and fire."
Though details of the outsourcing are still being worked out, Weiss said employees from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) and the sheriff's office would be contracted to run the city's fire and police services, likely using the city's existing equipment and buildings.
The city currently shares a joint fire department with Belmont, though San Carlos has complained in recent years that it is bearing too much of the cost. The outsourcing plan also includes parks maintenance, which would be contracted to a private firm at a projected savings of $400,000 per year, and the installation of parking meters downtown.

Weiss said he is proposing to maintain existing staffing levels and expects the city's current police officers and firefighters to be offered jobs with the contracting organizations. "They've done a very good job for this city," he said.

Still, opposition to the plan is already building, with an official from the Belmont-San Carlos Firefighters Association saying Weiss' proposed savings are overstated.

"We're completely opposed to it," said Capt. Gary Jacobs, district vice president for the firefighters' union. "We think the city manager's completely off base on this. The amount of money he would be talking about saving is minimal at best."

Jacobs said "the state may provide slightly cheaper service, but it won't be as good because Cal Fire tends to use fewer employees and makes them work long overtime hours."

Cal Fire already contracts service to 145 local agencies in California and offers a greater ability to adjust staffing levels, said spokesman Daniel Berlant.
"In these budget times, everybody's looking how can we be the most effective right now with our money," Berlant said.
Weiss' other plan — erasing the deficit through $3.5 million in cuts — includes laying off a police sergeant and four other police employees, a building inspector and a youth supervisor. The youth center and Laureola Building would be closed and management employees would forego a 2.75 percent salary hike due in July.
City officials blame the deficit on an economic recession that has reduced revenues, though the city's employee costs have steadily risen from $13.5 million in 2006 to $16.4 million this year due in part to raises negotiated into union contracts.
Weiss said a major reason the sheriff's service would be cheaper is economy of scale — the larger county organization has more than 700 employees it can deploy, compared to 31 sworn officers for San Carlos.
Mayor Randy Royce praised Weiss for "being very aggressive at looking at some really drastic options," but said he wants to know why contracted services would cost the city less and whether San Carlos departments could be more efficient.
"If they are that much less or they have better best practices of doing something or do it a different way, I'd like to understand that," Royce said. 
 Author: Shaun Bishop at sbishop@dailynewsgroup.com.
Source: Mercury News www.mercurynews.com - Link