By Jenn Klein
Chico Enterprise-Record
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CHICO, Calif. — Reducing the Fire Department’s overtime would impact public safety, the city’s fire chief said Wednesday.
Cutting $350,000 to $400,000 from the department’s annual overtime budget is one of 14 proposed recommendations put together by city staff that would cut more than a third of the city’s structural deficit of about $6 million a year.
“I can’t in good conscience recommend something that’s going to provide risk to the community or provide danger to my firefighters,” said Fire Chief Steve Brown.
Interim City Manager Dave Burkland said the overtime cut is still conceptual and the details still need to be sorted out.
“Certainly, we’re not trying to single out any of the departments but we’re trying to look at cuts in many areas.”
In a telephone interview, Brown said the department’s overtime is how the city staffs its stations and fire engines.
He said the city does so because it’s less expensive to pay someone overtime than to hire additional firefighters and pay them benefits.
The city keeps 22 people on a shift. If someone is on vacation or sick, another firefighter is called in on overtime.
Brown said the thought behind cutting overtime is perhaps on the days where the department is short a firefighter or two, it could operate with 20 or 21.
But Brown said there are only about 12 days a year where someone is not out sick, on vacation, at jury duty, on bereavement, or at a mandatory training. The chief said cutting overtime would mean the majority of the year, the department would be under its minimum staffing requirements.
“There clearly is a safety impact of doing that. We already operate way under the national standard, so it just puts us way down below it.”
He said for the department to operate under a reduction in minimum staffing requirements, the council would have to change its policy on what the standards would be and the fire union would have to agree to it. For the council to change the minimum staffing without agreement of the fire union, it would have to lay off employees.
Around $1 million of the Fire Department’s $13 million budget goes to overtime, according to earlier figures provided by Finance Director Jennifer Hennessy. Those figures vary year to year.
Brown said using the department’s volunteer firefighters to fill in for a full-time firefighter would also not work and could have a “life and death impact.”
Not only are the volunteer firefighters unavailable because they have jobs or go to school, their experience level is very different. Volunteers take part in two three-hour drills each month, while full-time firefighters spend two to three hours every shift practicing. Volunteer firefighters are also not EMTs, he said.
Earlier this week, at two meetings on the city’s budget, residents pointed out the high percentage of medical calls the Fire Department responds to as a reason to justify reducing fire staffing.
Brown said the department’s response to medical emergencies is actually an added value.
The chief said about 70 percent of the department’s calls for service are for medical emergencies. That’s actually less than the national average of 85 percent of calls as this area does have more fires, he said.
All of the city’s firefighters are licensed emergency medical technicians. Some are also paramedics, he said.
Cutting that responsibility from the fire department would only save money on the cost of training classes, medical gear and diesel fuel to get to the scene. It would not save money on staffing, as the fire stations would still be staffed at the same level for fire response. However, he said it would come at a detriment to the health of the community.
Brown said the department has submitted a list of what it’s already done to cut costs. He said his staff also has many other ideas for what to cut that would not impact safety.
One idea is to allow firefighters to sell their vacation back to the city at their normal rate, rather than paying someone to fill in for them with overtime, he said.