Fire Merger?

The Daily Journal is reporting on the on-going issue of more cities join Central County Fire:

Burlingame and Hillsborough merged fire department to form Central County in 2004. Under the proposal, Burlingame could close its fire station on Hillside Drive and Millbrae could close its station on Crestview Drive and the two could be replaced with a new station located between the two locations, Dennis Haag, fire chief for Millbrae and San Bruno, wrote in staff reports.

Under the consolidation, the four-city department would have a $25.1 million annual budget with Central County Fire cities covering 50 percent, San Bruno contributing 30 percent and Millbrae putting in 20 percent. Such an arrangement would save an estimated $546,000 for Burlingame, $375,000 for Millbrae, $364,000 for Hillsborough and $230,000 for San Bruno. These savings assume salary and benefits would be paid at the level offered by Central County, Haag wrote.

Of course, the devil is in the details--response times, crew sizes, land acquisition costs, voting rights, different pay scales among existing staff, and on and on.  There more to this than meets the eye.

Comments

[Joe]

This article in the SM Daily Journal starts to peel this onion a bit http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=156982&title=Burlingame%20OKs%20testing%20a%20four-city%20fire%20merger

Key points like closing two stations, spending $8M to build a new one (in a neighborhood that wasn't expecting it), and the issues that arise if Millbrae can no longer meet the financial commitments are noted. If Millbrae residents fail to renew their fire safety tax like Pacifica just did, it will be a miracle if "Contract language to deal with such a situation would be handled up front through implementation conversations". You can have all the contract language you want, but no money to pay for it.

The different payscales/benefits of the four cities' crews, the fact that San Bruno firefighters are represented by the Teamsters which is different than civil service unions and the overhead of having four city councils and city managers watch all of this is to be watched very closely.

[Pam]

Terry Nagel was her smarmiest smarmster last night. I hate when politicians are running for one office while then are not doing the job of the one they are in. You should get some quotes from what she said about the city staff.

[dtn]

Come on now. In Nagel's little mind city staff time is free. Doesn't everyone think that.

[Joe]

Here's a bit of an update from the Daily Journal--it has been a year! I wonder if the residents around Cuernavaca Park know that they are going to get their own fire station in the neighborhood?

Months after giving the go-ahead to test sharing fire services, the Burlingame City Council will discuss the funding requirements Monday.

Burlingame currently partners with Hillsborough for fire services under Central County Fire. In July, the City Council approved the continuation of work toward creating a temporary fire station while a shared fire station is explored and consolidating administration with Millbrae and San Bruno fire departments. Moving forward with the station, the city is now looking at the actual cost to implement the plan.

In total, the temporary station project will cost $588,800. Under the proposed shared cost agreements, Burlingame would cover $176,640, Hillsborough would cover $117,760 and Millbrae would cover $294,400, according to a staff report by Central County Fire Chief Don Dornell. The costs are less than the original estimate of $800,000.

Costs to Central County Fire could be offset, Dornell wrote, through retirements and by reducing staff on Truck 34. The temporary station will save Central County Fire $450,000 annually, he wrote.