Supervisors send fire district consolidation to LAFCO

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors forwarded a request to the Local Agency Formation Commission to consolidate the fire districts within county jurisdiction.

The 5-0 vote November 30 asks LAFCO to initiate the process of consolidating 35 fire protection agencies and volunteer fire departments in the unincorporated area of the county.

“The system should be changed to provide better services for the entire unincorporated area, and it should be done with existing taxes,” said Supervisor Bill Horn. “The voters have spoken, and so I think we need to proceed.”

Proposition C, an advisory measure on the consolidation of fire protection service in the unincorporated area, passed on the November 2 ballot with more than 80 percent of unincorporated area voters in support. “There is overwhelming support for change in the way fire protection is delivered in San Diego County,” said Supervisor Dianne Jacob.

“The public, at least in theory, they do support it overwhelmingly,” said Supervisor Pam Slater-Price.

The advisory measure did not ask the voters about additional funding for such a department, and the supervisors cautioned that sufficient funding would be a prerequisite for a consolidated fire department.

“We cannot afford to pay all those volunteers,” Horn said.

The specific action of sending the matter to LAFCO does not have a fiscal impact. “There will, of course, be a fiscal impact to the region if consolidation is going to take place, and it won’t work, in my opinion, unless we have a long-term stable funding source,” Jacob said.

One possible source of funding would involve a shift in the distribution of property taxes collected by the County of San Diego. Currently 63 cents on each dollar of San Diego County’s property tax revenue is spent on education while the statewide average is 52 cents. “That 11 cents on each property tax dollar would provide over $270 million,” Jacob said.

The state would be required to backfill the revenue for education if the money were to be shifted to the county for programs such as fire protection. “It’s going to take state legislation. It will take the support of the governor in order to correct this inequity,” Jacob said.

Kevin Crawford, the president of the San Diego County Fire Chiefs Association and Carlsbad’s fire chief, noted that the obstacle to consolidation was a financial issue rather than an organizational chart matter. “It is an issue grounded in finances. Funding has been the greatest long-term challenge to providing fire protection in the county’s unincorporated areas.”

Crawford noted that some districts have taxed themselves to make a significant investment in fire protection services, and a revised system must take those efforts into account.

“We already have a large underfunded fire protection district in the East County,” said Alpine Fire Protection District board member Steve Kramer, referring to the San Diego Rural Fire Protection District. “We don’t need another one, and we don’t need a larger one.”

On November 29 the Alpine Fire Protection District board unanimously voted to oppose the consolidation of the county’s fire districts without a permanent and adequate funding source. “We believe this action is premature,” Kramer said. “We do not want to see dilution of services in one area of the county.”

Kramer noted that some fire protection districts have turned down additional taxes for fire protection and said that districts which have supported additional funding should not be forced to fund areas which have not provided such revenue. “I can’t imagine Rancho Santa Fe throwing all of their money in one county pool,” he said. “Alpine is in a similar situation, although on a much smaller scale.”

Kramer urged the supervisors to address the funding issue before proceeding with consolidation. “I’m afraid that many districts will opt out of the process,” he said.

Jacob concurred with Kramer’s comments on the need for funding. “This will not work if any current fire district or agency loses,” she said.

Jacob did not feel that sending the proposal to LAFCO for review was premature. “To get into the process we have to initiate it, and that’s all this board is asking LAFCO to do,” she said. “There’s a whole list of functions that can be better coordinated with centralized management.”

Fire district functions include fire suppression, paramedic services, fire prevention efforts, and service letters confirming the ability to serve new development. Horn noted the possibility of centralizing some functions, such as an attack force, while keeping functions such as ambulance service more locally-based.

Consolidation does not necessarily mean administrative consolidation; it could also equate to functional consolidation of specific services or to a joint powers agency. “It doesn’t preclude fire districts from working together on functional consolidation or forming JPAs,” Supervisor Greg Cox said of the motion to send the matter to LAFCO. “We don’t want to do anything that’s going to slow down their ability to work together.”

Supervisor Ron Roberts noted that some districts currently have an inadequate level of effort. “We’ve been tolerating it, but it shouldn’t go on,” he said. “That’s not just a threat to them. It’s a threat to all of us.”

Bill Metcalf, the fire chief of the North County Fire Protection District, said that assurances were needed of equitable treatment and no reduction of service. “The bottom line is that we support moving forward, but there’s the big but that we have to resolve the funding issue,” he said.

LAFCO handles jurisdictional changes including consolidations, dissolutions, detachments, annexations, and city incorporations. The LAFCO board consists of eight members: two are county supervisors, one is a San Diego City Council member, two are members of other city councils, two are board members of special districts, and one is a public member.

Mike Ott, the executive officer of LAFCO, said that the LAFCO portion of the process would begin with the agency’s February 7 meeting, when LAFCO is scheduled to receive and adopt a service review and a sphere of influence update report for the 28 special districts involved. “Under the law you can use those two reports as a basis to initiate a change of organization such as a consolidation,” Ott said.

“The prerequisite of the law is to finish the two studies,” Ott said. “That opens the door for implementation.”

LAFCO has been looking at the matter since 1999, when a fire protection task force was formed to address funding issues. The task force had explored regionalization options, and in 2002 the LAFCO board authorized proceedings for a service review. Volume 1, which covers special districts, was completed in early 2004, although other LAFCO projects have delayed the completion of the two subsequent volumes which will cover incorporated cities and other fire protection agencies such as the US Forest Service, the California Department of Forestry, military fire departments, and Indian reservation fire departments.

If the LAFCO board decides to initiate consolidation proceedings in February, LAFCO staff will bring back a consolidation proposal and alternatives. “We’ll get into some of the funding options as well,” Ott said.

“It’s a monumental task,” Ott said of the consolidation proceedings. “It will require a monumental effort on our part.”

LAFCO’s final determination of a solution is expected to take place sometime in 2005, although specific timetables cannot currently be provided. “It’s going to be the highest priority item we’re going to be dealing with in ’05,” Ott said.