Staff recommends that the Board approve the attached budget amendment and appropriation.

For over a year FREM staff has been backfilling night and weekend shifts at Fire/rescue Station 5 to provide service when the Chancellor Volunteer Fire-Rescue Department (CVFR) is unable to do so.  Staffing responsibilities were reorganized in May to lessen the burden upon CVFR, requiring them only to cover the weekends, however CVFR continued to experience significant challenges in doing so. This was initially thought to be a temporary situation, but after discussion with the CVFR leadership, it is clear that the volunteers are no longer able to provide full weekend staffing at Fire/Rescue Station 5.  When CFVR pulled away from Fire/Rescue Station 10 several years ago, the expectation was CVFR would be able to reorganize and cover the night and weekend shifts at Fire/Rescue Station 5, with career staff supplementing on occasion.  Additional modifications were made to the staffing arrangement to reduce CVFR’s staffing responsibility to only the weekends.  However, it is now the case that career staff are providing frequent coverage of the weekend shifts using overtime hours because of the inconsistency of the CVFR staffing.

Anticipated Costs

The continued use of career staff to fill the weekend shifts was not expected and was not planned for in the FY 2018 Budget.  To provide FREMS staff coverage of the weekend shifts at Company 5, Chief Cullinan is recommending that an additional six Firefighter/Medic positions be created and hired in August.  These recruits will attend the FREM recruit academy from their August 2017 hire date through February 2018.  Once the academy training is complete, an existing Firefighter/Medic will be promoted to the Lieutenant in charge of the third shift at Fire/Rescue Station 5 and one of these six new hires will backfill the vacated Firefighter/Medic positions.  The personnel costs associated with this action total $302,863.  Additionally, $21,375 in equipment and operating supplies will be necessary – a lower than expected amount because FREM will absorb costs such as turnout gear, uniforms and physicals in its existing FY 2018 Budget.

The County currently provides financial support to CVFR based on the number of active hours of approximately 100 volunteers serving to provide 15,080 combined hours of staffing.  Because CVFR is reducing its coverage, Chief Cullinan is recommending the County’s financial support to the volunteer agency be reduced, as well.  These reductions will apply to the base allocation, other professional services, per diem, telephone, training, operating supplies, and uniforms accounts.  In total, the recommended reduction is $135,158, leaving the County’s financial support of CVFR budgeted at $196,130 for FY 2018 because certain costs such as equipment repairs, training, Line of Duty Act, and uniforms will be incurred for those volunteers continuing to serve with CVFR augmenting career staff.  

While the recommended six new recruits are attending the FREM recruit academy from August 2017 through February 2018, overtime will continue to be incurred for the existing career staff members providing the Chancellor coverage.  Again, this was not expected and not planned for in the FY 2018 Budget.  Overtime staffing of 58-hour weekend shifts from August 2017 through February 2018 – 35 weeks – is estimated to cost $316,063. 

The costs related to this proposal are summarized below:

Recommendations for Funding the Need

County Admin and Finance staff recommend that the $316,063 in overtime cost be funded with the available General Fund balance, as it is a one-time cost that will no longer be incurred once the six recruits are finished with the academy in February 2018 and are staffing the weekend shifts at Fire/Rescue Station 5.  This is meant to be one-time funding that will not be incurred for this purpose again in FY 2019 and beyond. 

Though it had not been finalized when the Board of Supervisors adopted the FY 2018 Budget, the State’s FY 2018 Budget has now been finalized.  Finance staff has reviewed Compensation Board reports and expect an increase of $257,089 in on-going State revenue which would more than cover the $189,080 in on-going expenses within this proposal.

The sources of funding for this proposal are summarized below:

Staff requests the Board’s approval of this proposal and of the attached budget adjustment and appropriation.

Please see the attached budget adjustment and appropriation.

Jay Cullinan, Fire Chief

Bonnie Jewell, Budget Manager

If this request is denied, the County will continue to incur unbudgeted overtime to staff the weekend shifts at Fire/Rescue Station 5 and the FREM budget for FY 2018 will run over budget.