Supervisors direct CAO to evaluate LAFCO reorganization plans

In December San Diego County’s Local Agency Formation Commission directed LAFCO’s executive officer to transmit the terms and conditions of the proposed Phase I fire department reorganization to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

On January 29 the supervisors voted 5-0 to receive the proposal along with other information from the LAFCO meeting and to direct the county’s Chief Administrative Officer to evaluate the reorganization plan and input and report back to the board within 120 days with recommendations.

“The bottom line is to improve the level of fire and emergency medical services in this area and in the region,” said Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who is also one of two county supervisors on the LAFCO board.

LAFCO’s 7-1 vote December 3, with County Supervisor Bill Horn in opposition, accepted the draft terms and conditions of reorganization recommended by a subcommittee appointed in May to address various issues such as property tax, contract, and labor transfer.

The reorganization will return to LAFCO for ratification when all Phase I reorganization conditions, including identifying a source of stable funding, are completed.

The LAFCO legal process for the reorganization began in February 2005 with approval from the Board of Supervisors to initiate a change.

The original proposal was to consolidate all 28 fire protection agencies in the county’s unincorporated area along with the unserved areas (territory served by a volunteer fire department but not by a public agency is legally considered an unserved area), but the LAFCO reorganization process also includes a period to submit a substantially similar proposal which may be approved by the LAFCO board. The San Diego County Fire Chiefs Association and the San Diego County Fire Districts Association submitted such a proposal to divide the reorganization into two phases, incorporating 17 of the agencies and the unserved territory in Phase I to provide service to the unserved and most underserved areas while evaluating the remaining agencies in Phase II to determine whether or not consolidation is the most beneficial option.

In August 2005 the LAFCO board approved the substantially similar proposal.

At LAFCO’s December 2005 meeting the board received a macro report which presented a range of options for providing structural fire protection and emergency medical service in the unincorporated areas.

Seven options were presented, and the LAFCO board selected a two-phased approach with preference toward the three options providing paid personnel at every station.

In February 2006 LAFCO approved the scope of work for a Phase I micro report which covered governance, transition and implementation strategy, operations, fiscal management, capital assets, and miscellaneous issues.

The studies were not affected by the Board of Supervisors’ decisions in September 2005 and June 2006 to provide $8.5 million for contracts with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to augment service in areas not adequately protected.

The county supervisors have also committed $200,000 in Community Development Block Grants each year for needs of the fire service and an additional $200,000, derived from the savings of refinancing the county’s Otay prison, into a trust fund for fire agencies. (Although Community Development Block Grant funds are restricted to eligible neighborhoods, the trust fund awards have no such restriction.)

The County of San Diego has also sponsored Senate Bill 806, authored by Dennis Hollingsworth, which would appropriate up to $40 million each year for fire protection services in unserved or underserved areas through a shift in property tax distribution.

SB 806 has currently become a two-year bill which will be considered in 2008.

The initial Phase I agencies included four municipal water districts which also provide fire protection and emergency medical services; the reorganization would have retained water and sanitation functions but not emergency service functions for the Ramona, Mootamai, Pauma, and Yuima districts.

The study determined, however, that under state law the removal of individual powers from multipurpose special districts is not authorized. (If a municipal water district voluntarily relinquishes a latent power, the reorganization could include that territory, although none of the districts chose to submit resolutions requesting inclusion by the July 2007 deadline.)

Seven additional agencies sought to be excluded from reorganization or deferred to Phase II. All seven of those agencies have voter-approved assessments and meet the substantially similar proposal’s service levels.

Exclusion of those agencies from Phase I also reduces the risk of a successful protest petition. The dissolution of an agency includes a protest petition provision which for a LAFCO-initiated proposal would trigger an election if ten percent of the number of registered voters or landowners in any district signed the petition.

For districts of fewer than 300 registered voters, the signature requirement is 25 percent.

A protest election would then take place for the entire proposed consolidated area.

On May 7 LAFCO voted 6-1 to approve consolidating six fire agencies and the unserved area for Phase I and to authorize latent powers for fire protection and emergency medical services within a zone of the county’s special district covering regional communications.

The May 7 action also allowed agencies which had requested exclusion to reconsider participation, and that was the case with County Service Area No. 113, which covers San Pasqual.

In addition to CSA No. 113, the six agencies which would be consolidated in Phase I are the East County, Pine Valley, and San Diego Rural fire protection districts and the County Service Areas serving Boulevard, Campo, and Mount Laguna.

The new agency, which will be called the San Diego County Regional Fire Authority, will also include 943,876 acres of unserved territory, although volunteer fire departments will retain their autonomy and are expected to work together with the paid firefighters covering those areas.

The total area of the Phase I consolidated agency is 1,425,814 square miles, or approximately two-thirds of the county’s unincorporated area.

The consolidation, however, is conditioned upon a secure funding source. The most recent cost estimates determined a total annual cost of $25,692,140 at the Basic Life Support level and $26,499,116 for Advanced Life Support service.

Even with the $8.5 million the Board of Supervisors currently spends on an enhancement program, the shortfall would total $12,971,871 for BLS and $13,724,847 for ALS. The figures do not include approximately $37 million in capital costs, mostly for station upgrades.

“This plan is very expensive,” said Supervisor Greg Cox. “But we need to hear back from our Chief Administrative Officer on what can be done and what we can afford to do.”

Funding possibilities include a parcel tax or a sales tax increase, both of which would require a two-thirds vote, as well as use of county general funds, redirection of Proposition 172 sales tax revenue from law enforcement to the fire service, and funding from the State of California.

The LAFCO input in December included a proposal by the Zone 8 fire chiefs which would involve a stipend for reserves. Although LAFCO’s purview does not include operational plans for reorganized agencies, the proposal was acknowledged to provide a cost savings.

“It may be possible to put together a hybrid plan,” Jacob said. “This is not just looking at the LAFCO plan.”

The area to be included in Phase I has 28 fire stations of local agencies and volunteer fire departments. The area is also served by 18 California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and 14 US Forest Service fire stations.

“There are a lot of pieces and a lot of overlap to this puzzle,” Jacob said.

The direction to the Chief Administrative Officer had the support of both the San Diego County Fire Chiefs Association and the San Diego County Fire Districts Association.

“We’re so close to making something good,” said San Diego County Fire Districts Association president Augie Ghio, who is the fire chief of the San Miguel Consolidated Fire Protection District. “We know that we can improve it.”

“We know that there are other plans out there,” Ghio said. “We know that there’s no one single answer to improving fire and EMS service in this region.”

Horn supported the vote to have the Chief Administrative Officer investigate options but didn’t guarantee his support when the recommendations were returned to the supervisors. “Right now I just don’t see the revenue to make this happen,” he said.

“I just think that LAFCO underestimated the cost of consolidating,” Horn said. “I don’t want to spend that kind of money just to create a paper fire department.”