2005 article about CDF FF costs

Reprinted with permission from The Fresno Bee 10-30-2005

Up in smoke

While local governments have come to depend on CDF firefighters, their salary and benefit costs are leaving the budgets of cities and counties up in smoke.

By Denny Boyles, Charles McCarthy and Matt Leedy / The Fresno Bee

(Updated Sunday, October 30, 2005, 7:47 AM)

Firefighter Ken Myers was sometimes frustrated in Tulare County this summer spraying water on burning houses and waiting for help before he could fully attack a spreading fire.

Firefighters aren't allowed to enter a burning building without backup, and lately, backup can take longer than it used to in the state's rural counties. Skyrocketing salary and benefit costs for California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection firefighters have squeezed the budgets of the counties and cities that depend on them.

In Tulare County, officials laid off 15 of their 64 firefighters and switched five stations to volunteer-only staffing this year as they try to balance adequate fire protection with the costs of the CDF firefighters they pay.

"I've been on fires where people are pushing us and screaming at us to save their home, but we can only work from the outside until there are four people on the scene," said Myers, an engineer who spends his summers in Tulare County and his winters in Southern California. "It's incredibly hard to watch someone lose their house because there aren't enough firefighters on duty."

Other counties also are feeling the pinch:

Fire officials in Fresno County shrugged off a consultant's recommendation three years ago to cancel their CDF contract. Fire Chief Ted Mendoza says he has adequate, though not ideal, coverage.

Madera County fire costs have risen 57% in the past five years, but officials there are getting by without major cuts because a local Indian casino and hospital help pay the bill.

Kings County canceled its CDF contract decades ago to begin its own fire department, but still has problems competing for trained firefighters because of the higher salaries CDF offers.

State firefighters also are concerned — about their jobs, about fire coverage in their communities and about what they say is a trend to blame their union for seeking a fair wage.

Homeowners in some CDF areas face not only potentially increased response times, but also rising insurance rates with companies that weigh the risks associated with understaffed fire departments.

The CDF is one of the largest fire departments in the country, and its 3,800 permanent and 1,400 seasonal employees are responsible for far more than just putting out forest fires. The agency contracts with cities and counties, providing staffing and some equipment for both urban and rural firefighting as well as emergency response to auto accidents, medical calls, hazardous material spills, swift-water rescues and search-and-rescue missions.

Locally, Merced and Mariposa counties also rely on CDF for fire protection in unincorporated areas. The city of Madera also contracts with CDF rather than run its own fire department. Statewide, CDF handles firefighting in 36 counties through local government contracts.

Now, local counties are exploring severing ties with CDF, saying they simply can't afford to pay the firefighters. Since 2001, salary and benefit costs for CDF firefighters have risen more than 68%, the result of an agreement that year between then-Gov. Gray Davis and union officials representing CDF workers.

That agreement was designed to help state firefighters' salaries be more competitive with wages in city fire departments, and to fix a decades-old system that paid firefighters less per hour for overtime than regular time. The agreement phased in the increases over five years, with the largest jumps coming the past two years.

The salaries are paid through local budgets of cities and counties. And while county officials understand the reasons for the increases, they say the bottom line is that paying 68% more for the same level of service has depleted their reserves and forced them to cut jobs and coverage.

It's a situation both CDF and local governments admit is dangerous, but there are no ready solutions and it might worsen as the state and the union head back to the bargaining table next month to work out a new contract for when the current one expires in July.

Many cities and counties have reduced the number of firefighters on duty and shifted staffing at some stations from full-time to volunteer. More are faced with similar decisions.

Madera County replaced one battalion chief with a lower-paid fire captain/training officer, and replaced a CDF fire marshal with a lower-paid county employee in an attempt to save money, a move one CDF leader said was potentially unsafe.

Tulare County's recent cuts came even though the county already was staffing most stations with one full-time firefighter. That meant as many as four engines had to be sent to each structure fire in order to have enough personnel on hand to fight the fire. Safety laws prohibit firefighters from entering a home until at least four people are on the scene, a rule called "two-in, two-out."

Battalion Chief Mike Davidson, head of Tulare County's fire prevention bureau, said that in a stressful situation such as a house fire, time seems to move more slowly.

"We've had people swear that it took us 30 minutes to arrive, when in reality the response time was only four to six minutes," he said. "To the people standing there watching their home burn, or to a firefighter working outside waiting for backup, that four to six minutes seems much longer."

The only time firefighters are allowed to violate the "two-in, two-out" rule is when a life is in danger. Davidson said the rule can become frustrating for firefighters because the tactics used to fight a fire from outside are much different than fighting from within a structure.

"Every firefighter would tell you that it would be fantastic to run four guys on every engine. That would allow them to immediately set and enter a structure. Running one-man engines doesn't stop us from fighting fires; it just changes the strategy," Davidson said.

"It's not like we stand and watch the house burn, but it is more effective to be able to work in and out of the home."

Until 2001, state firefighters were paid under a complicated system that was tailored to fit their 12-day-a-month work schedule. Working 24 hours a day, they average 72 hours per week. Under the old plan, firefighters, engineers and battalion chiefs were each paid one rate for the first 53 hours they worked in each average week, then half that rate for the remaining 19 hours.

The 2001 deal gradually increased the overtime pay from half-time to time-and-a-half. Firefighters say the increase was fair and necessary to bring them in line with federal overtime guidelines. Also, benefit costs have doubled.

An engineer who once cost a county or city less than $70,000 a year — which includes salary, benefits, overtime and administration — now costs nearly $108,000. Costs for captains rose from $80,000 to $134,000, and for battalion chiefs from $106,000 to $187,000. By contrast, it costs the city of Fresno's fire department $93,638 for an engineer, $103,502 for a captain and $126,335 for a battalion chief.

The costs of CDF firefighters are the same whether a firefighter is stationed in Los Angeles County or Mariposa County. The extra expense was passed along to contracting counties and cities, which had no say in the contract negotiations.

Billy See, a vice president of the CDF firefighters' union, said the problem now isn't the rising salaries, but that most counties and cities did nothing to prepare for the increases. So as the bills got heftier, cuts had to be made.

See said now that cuts have begun locally and in other areas of the state, many of his fellow firefighters are not just worried about their jobs, but are increasingly angry at being made scapegoats.

"They knew for four years that the increases were coming, but they didn't do anything to find new ways to fund the departments," See said of the contracting counties and cities. "They want to run a 2005 fire department on a 1975 funding plan, and it just won't work."

Jean Rousseau, deputy county administrative officer for Tulare County, said See is right, at least partially:

"We probably should have done something, but we didn't. Prior to the increases, our fire fund was very healthy and was carrying a reserve of $1.5 million. It was hard, with those facts, to ask people to consider paying more taxes before the money was needed."

With nothing left to cut, Rousseau and other Tulare County officials will decide whether the county will stick with CDF or cancel the contract and form its own department. Last year, the county paid nearly $13 million for CDF service, up more than $1.5million from the year before.

"We just need to find an option we can afford. We have been satisfied with the level of service CDF has provided," Rousseau said. "The question now is affordability, because while the level of service hasn't changed, the cost has."

Candace Gregory, CDF chief for the Central Sierra Region, said counties should look to see whether they're getting the best bang for their buck.

"Statewide, there are a number of counties that are re-evaluating their contracts with CDF, including Tulare and Butte counties. Others are taking a less formal look at their fire protection plan," she said. "This has happened, periodically, for decades. It's good business for a county to re-evaluate their services and decide which way is more efficient, CDF or another option."

Creating a county fire department comes with its own special set of challenges.

Kings County severed part of its contract with CDF in 1969, and switched to a completely locally run department a few years later.

Fire Chief Jim Kilner said that a county-run department allows more local control, but comes with its own salary issues.

"We struggled with retention for years because we paid less than CDF, and less than surrounding city departments," Kilner said. "That meant we were like a revolving door. We got new people, spent two or three years training them and then they would be lured away by better money and shorter workweeks."

Fresno County does not have a fire department. Instead, the Fresno County Fire Protection District — with its own board of directors, its own budget and the ability to collect property taxes to fund fire protection — is in charge of fire service for most of Fresno County's 2,500 square miles of unincorporated area, though it gets a $1 million annual subsidy from the county.

For five decades, the fire protection district has contracted with CDF to provide firefighters and dispatch services.

In October 2002, consultant Joe Johnson reviewed the CDF contract and recommended the county fire district sever its ties with CDF. He argued that CDF's rising wages, hours and benefits were out of the fire protection district's control and by dropping CDF and creating its own fire department the district could save about $1 million a year. The county could negotiate directly with a local fire department, he said, instead of paying the wages and overtime negotiated between the state and CDF union.

The district's board of directors rejected Johnson's proposal.

Ted Mendoza, CDF's new Fresno/Kings unit chief and chief of the Fresno County fire district, said the coverage the district's $14 million annual budget can afford — including a staff of 92 people and 14 stations — is adequate but not ideal.

There are two firefighters for every engine, but he would like three. To bridge the gap, Mendoza has a committee trying to recruit and train more volunteers, including those willing to commit to a station for 12 to 24 hours at a time.

An additional firefighter allows a fire captain to coordinate an emergency instead of working a water pump.

Mendoza also said there should be another station along Interstate 5 in Fresno County. There's only one, at Harris Ranch, and the next-closest stations [in Mendota and Tranquillity] are 20 to 25 minutes away. An additional station and firefighters are needed along the interstate to handle frequent crashes.

He'd also like a station at Five Points that could better respond to crashes and fires in that farming community.

That helps everybody living in those areas, even if they never call 911. Response times and the ability of a local fire department are taken into account when homeowners insurance rates are calculated with help from Insurance Service Office, a private company that provides information and data to insurance companies.

Ratings range from 1 for a top fire department to rock-bottom 10, and insurance companies use them to help decide rates.

Every two years, the company sends questionnaires to fire departments. Any significant changes would warrant a field survey. Communities can also contact ISO on their own and request surveys, ISO spokesman Dave Dasgupta said.

The ISO looks at three major areas of fire protection: the fire department, water supply and dispatch system.

It's too soon to tell whether rates will eventually go up in counties that are laying off firefighters and leaving stations unstaffed by full-time firefighters.

Mendoza said CDF provides good service, and that Fresno County saves money with the contract, even with rising overtime costs. Echoing statements by union vice president See, Mendoza said CDF firefighters actually cost less than their city-paid counterparts in Fresno, Clovis and Visalia, though they take home more money each year.

That seemingly odd math is correct because CDF firefighters work an average of 72 hours a week, compared with the 56-hour workweeks of city firefighters. Those longer hours mean that CDF can employ fewer people. Money is saved, Mendoza said, in paying benefits for fewer firefighters.

While Tulare and Fresno counties have talked about cutting ties with CDF to save money, Madera County has help paying its fire service bills.

Agreements with the city of Madera, Children's Hospital Central California and the Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino have helped balance the books, said Gary Gilbert, a Madera County supervisor and former CDF regional chief who also was a fire consultant to Tulare County.

"In Madera, CDF is affordable," Gilbert said.

Because both the city and county of Madera get fire service through CDF, firefighters and equipment can be dispatched across city and county lines, helping provide better coverage with fewer people.

"In Madera, we are looking at how we can cap our costs, so that in the long term we won't have to make any more changes," Gilbert said.

The casino, near Coarsegold, and Children's Hospital, just north of Fresno, also help pay for fire services at those locations. A proposed casino along Highway 99 would pay for another station there.

Madera County Administrator Stell Manfredi said fire service the county paid $3 million for in 2001 now costs $4.7 million, and officials have still had to make cuts. Those cuts have troubled some CDF managers.

Friction between Madera County and the CDF flared in July after the county replaced one battalion chief with a lower-paid fire captain/training officer and replaced a CDF fire marshal with a lower-paid county worker doing the same job.

In response, Madera-Merced-Mariposa Unit Chief Gary L. Marshall sent a letter to the Madera County Board of Supervisors saying the loss of one battalion chief would hinder the ability to manage emergency incidents and "has the potential to compromise the safety" of the paid-call volunteers and career firefighting personnel.

On Aug. 31, Marshall stepped down as three-county unit chief and returned as deputy unit chief, his present designation.

Two days later, Division Chief Paul Helm, whose jurisdiction included the city of Madera, sent an e-mail to his firefighters telling them that he was leaving the Madera-Mariposa-Merced unit to be operations chief in Santa Cruz County.

"To squelch any further rumors and without going into detail, the sole reason for my decision to leave is attributed to the recent service level reductions imposed by the Madera Country Board of Supervisors," Helm wrote.

This month, Mikel Martin from San Benito County took over as the unit chief. Martin said that while not everyone in CDF agrees with decisions made by local leaders, the department must work with the resources provided.

"That was a decision made by the Board of Supervisors," Martin said about the Madera cuts. "We work for them."

Said Gilbert: "We're doing the best we can with what we've got."

The reporters can be reached at dboyles@fresnobee.com, cmccarthy@fresnobee.com, mleedy@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6330.

CDF firefighter Armando Gurrola uses a thermal imaging camera Thursday evening to check for hot spots in a Cutler apartment that burned the night before. Last year, Tulare County paid nearly $13 million for CDF service, up more than $1.5 million from the year before. The costs may force the county to end its contract with CDF.

Christian Parley / The Fresno Bee

Firefighter volunteer Deanna Spitzer of Camp Nelson takes a moment out of the sun as she is slightly overcome by the effects of dehydration at Tulare County Fire Headquarters in Visalia on Oct. 22. Spitzer and other firefighter volunteers are going through a training course at the headquarters.

Christian Parley / The Fresno Bee

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