Hemet Fire Services Final Report

Fire Services Options

and Fiscal Costs Review

for the

2250 East Bidwell St., Ste #100 Folsom, CA 95630

(916) 458-5100 Fax: (916) 983-2090

Management Consultants Folsom (Sacramento), CA

City of Hemet, CA

October 28, 2013

www.ci.pasadena.ca.us

Table of Contents page i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section Page

Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................1

Policy Choices Framework ......................................................................................... 1

Citygate’s Findings ...................................................................................................... 1

Citygate Services and Economics Perspective ............................................................ 4

Citygate’s Recommendations ...................................................................................... 8

Section 1—Introduction and Background .................................................................................11

1.1 Report Organization ...................................................................................... 11

1.1.1 Goals of Report ................................................................................. 11

1.1.2 Limitations of Report ........................................................................ 11

1.2 General Observations and Project Approach ................................................ 12

1.3 Fire Service Regulatory Framework and Service Design Needs .................. 12

1.4 Fire Service Headquarters Needs .................................................................. 14

1.5 Fire Crew Deployment Measures and Recommended Practices ................... 16

Section 2—Review of City-Provided Fire Services Issues ........................................................18

2.1 Overview of City Geography and Incident Statistics .................................... 18

2.2 Hemet Fire Department Current Staffing ...................................................... 19

2.3 Citygate’s Minimum Fire Headquarters Recommendations ......................... 20

2.4 Stations and Response Times ........................................................................ 21

2.5 Fire Prevention and Other Specialty Services ............................................... 23

2.6 Paramedic Services and Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) .................... 24

2.6.1 Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) ............................................... 26

2.6.2 Overall Paramedic Program Costs .................................................... 27

2.7 The City Fire Department Proposal for Continued Independent Operation . 30

2.8 Analysis and Comment ................................................................................. 31

Section 3—Review of County-Provided Fire Services Issues ..................................................32

Table of Contents page ii

3.1 Services Provided in County Proposal .......................................................... 32

3.2 County Proposal Benefits and Constraints .................................................... 34

3.3 County Proposal Items that Need Clarification ............................................. 34

Section 4—Cost of Fire Services Choices and Services ............................................................37

4.1 How the Costs in the Tables Were Developed .............................................. 38

4.2 Cost Comparison Tables with Explanation ................................................... 39

4.3 County Proposal Issues to be Resolved ......................................................... 43

4.4 Cost Analysis Findings .................................................................................. 44

Section 5—Advantages and Disadvantages of a County Fire Contract..................................46

Table of Tables

Table 1—Summation of Major Incident Types in City of Hemet ................................................ 18

Table 2—City Paramedic Costs NO EMD – Staff, September 2013 ........................................... 28

Table 3—Citygate Paramedic Program Costs – October 2013 .................................................... 29

Table 4—Comparison of City Service Level D to County Option #1 without EMD Costs ......... 40

Table 5—Comparison of Service Level and Cost Alternatives without EMD Costs ................... 41

Table 6—Comparison of City Service Level D to County Option #1 WITH EMD Costs ........... 42

Table 7—Comparison of Service Level and Cost Alternatives WITH EMD Costs ..................... 43

Executive Summary page 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The City of Hemet (the City) retained Citygate Associates, LLC to conduct an operational and

cost review of its current choices for providing fire services. The objectives of this analysis are to

(1) compare the City fire services and costs over a multiple year period against best practices and

the needs of Hemet; and (2) then evaluate, as a policy option, the County Fire Department’s

proposal to meet those needs. Throughout this comparative analysis, Citygate makes findings,

recommendations, and outlines the resultant policy choices and next steps facing the Hemet City

Council.

This study is presented in several sections including this Executive Summary outlining the

findings and recommendations, followed by detailed sections on background facts, City- and

County-provided fire services, cost analysis, and then a conclusion outlining the advantages and

disadvantages of a contract with the County. Overall, there are 14 key findings and 3

recommendations.

As a comparative analysis report of the two fire department proposals, this document does not

contain detailed background information regarding how a fire department operates or the

multitude of best practice recommendations and federal or state safety laws on fire services. This

report is intended to brief a reader familiar with local government and fire services regarding the

provision of fire service choices and costs under consideration by the City of Hemet.

POLICY CHOICES FRAMEWORK

As a starting point, the reader needs to remember that there are no mandatory federal or state

regulations directing the level of fire service staffing, response times, and outcomes. Thus,

communities have the level of fire services that they can afford, which is not always what they

would desire. However, the body of regulations on the fire service provides that if fire services

are provided at all, they must be done so with the safety of the firefighters and citizens in mind.

CITYGATE’S FINDINGS

Throughout this report Citygate makes key technical findings that are presented below in one list

for ease of reading. These findings represent the foundation for our economics model and

resultant recommendations.

Finding #1: Fire and emergency medical incident outcomes are most effective where response

times for 90 percent of incidents consist of either (1) 4 minutes travel time for

first-due engines, or (2) 6:20 minutes/seconds total response time for the first-due

unit capable of starting effective intervention for the type of emergency.


Hemet Measure C phrases response time goals as 5 minutes or less, for 80 percent

of fire and emergency medical calls, provided on both a citywide and response

areas basis. The City does not have current response time data based on best

practice response time measurements. As a result, both the City and County

proposals could only state that they would comply with Hemet Measure C

(Measure EE) and that they would provide the staffing at four stations as

requested by the City in its RFP. Without accurate response time data and a

revised City policy that both defines and measures response time, the City is

unable to determine whether either the City or the County, as the fire service

provider, complies with Measure C.

Finding #2: Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) is not a critical need for the City, since

most, if not all, of the medical calls, given their nature, will still have an engine or

squad response. EMD, in and of itself, will not allow the closure of one or more

of the four firefighting engines needed for citywide adequate response time.

Finding #3: While EMD might free up some fire units to be more available to perform

simultaneous demand at peak hours of the day, or avoid some wear-and-tear costs

on some fire apparatus, the direct cost savings will not be close to the expected

City cost of adding 9 dispatchers at a low-side estimate of $739,075.

Finding #4: Projected paramedic costs, even as adjusted by Citygate, are on the low side at

best. The unknown is the longer-term cost of services to be provided by the

contracted clinical oversight and training provider.

Finding #5: The current Administrative Captain coverage in lieu of Battalion Chiefs needs to

be evaluated to ensure the Administrative Captains are trained to the Battalion

Chief “duty chief” level. Further, the following question needs to be addressed:

how long can this model be continued if the compensation and/or skill set is

significantly lower than that of Battalion Chief?

Finding #6: The City appears to be assigning Fire Marshal and Training responsibilities as

“extra duties” to 2 fire crew Captains, but this is inadequate for a City the size of

Hemet.

Finding #7: The location of the current County truck company is too far from Hemet to

provide initial needed ladder truck coverage.

Finding #8: The County proposal that includes a truck company that would be located in

Hemet is cost-effective because it serves both Hemet and fills a gap that the

County has in timely truck coverage to its own service areas north and east of

Hemet. Thus, the County’s proposal only charges Hemet half the cost of a 4-

firefighter-staffed ladder truck that will be stationed in Hemet.


Finding #9: If the City contracts with the County for fire services, CAL FIRE will only absorb

firefighters with paramedic certification. After hiring four firefighter-paramedics

to fill existing vacancies this fall, the number of firefighter-paramedics will be 13

of the 15 firefighter positions in the budget. Thus, a merger with the County, if it

occurred before more firefighters retired or resigned, would result in 2 firefighters

being laid off or transferred out of the County due to the lack of paramedic

certification. If the City does not start its paramedic program before conversion,

then all 15 firefighters will be subject to transfer or layoff.

Finding #10: There are significant unknowns that can cause one-time County Fire conversion

costs to swing substantially, including liability for employees injured prior to

conversion, the vacation leave buyout, and start-up costs.

Finding #11: Citygate cautions the City that level of service choices A through C anticipate the

continued use of acting chief officers, until, through retirements and/or training

and certification, the acting chief officer positions can be transitioned into

permanent chief officer positions. If the City seeks to convert the acting positions

immediately to permanent appointments, the City is likely to have one or more of

the current acting chief officers return to the rank of captain, resulting in there

being more captains than the current budget provides for. The continued use of

acting chief officers is unsustainable.

Finding #12: Given current levels of staffing and funding, it would be surprising if the Hemet

Fire Department is able to keep up with mandates for training provision, training

verification, fire code inspections, fire code permits, permit fees, and second-tier

priorities like public education and disaster preparedness. Based on this, and the

unsustainable use of acting chief officers, it is very likely that if the City chooses

to even maintain the current Hemet Fire Department crew deployment levels,

doing so will require more investment in fire services, starting with headquarters

staff and paramedics.

Finding #13: The most comparable service configuration between the City and County proposal

is for the City to convert the 2-person squad back to a 3-person truck company

and add paramedics, a Fire Marshal, a fire prevention clerk, a 40-hour Training

Officer and permanent chief officers. This compares most directly to the County

proposal that provides a shared 4-person truck company and adequate fire

headquarters services in Hemet.

Finding #14: If the City contracts with the County, it will be most cost-effective for all City fire

apparatus and specialty tools to be given to the County. The County will then be

responsible for maintenance and replacement. The County prefers that all front-


line fire apparatus be in County ownership, due to the liability of County fire

personnel driving the equipment.

CITYGATE SERVICES AND ECONOMICS PERSPECTIVE

In the very near term, if the Council and community can afford firefighter paramedics, EMD, a

ladder truck with dedicated staffing, and a restored, permanent chief officer headquarters team,

then it is less costly to select the County Fire Department contract. The County contract provides

cost savings at that higher level of service, and the County provides greater depth in staffing,

training and management. The major issue for the City is “loss of cost control” over future fire

personnel costs if another economic downturn occurs.

The City should first make a policy decision to choose the fire services level it can fund for a

minimum of the next three years. Citygate has recommended that the following four levels of

service are the most cost-effective choices for the City. These levels of service may also be

approached as a set of phased steps, so that the City can choose the level that it can fund at this

time and then improve the level of service in later years as funding allows.

A. Current operation. Includes 4 engines, 1 squad, 1 cross-staffed ladder

truck, and 4 acting chief officers. Does not include paramedics or

Emergency Medical Dispatch.

B. Option A plus the City fire paramedic program.

C. Option A+B plus the addition of headquarters personnel for a training

chief, fire marshal, and second office assistant.

D. Option A+B+C plus the addition of permanent chief officers (4) and a

return to a dedicated 3-person ladder truck crew, to replace the 2-person

squad.

Given Citygate’s fire services consulting and practitioner experience, we have set forth these

policy choices in priority order from service level A being below minimum expectations to

service level D completely meeting the current and likely near term needs of Hemet. The City

can then choose the level that it can fund at this time and then improve the level of service in

later years as reoccurring, not one-time, funding allows.

The service levels are more completely described below as to the specific staffing and services

improvements as funds allow:

Service Level A: Continue As Is Hemet Fire Department Operations

1. Current Hemet fire operations, methods, training, equipment and personnel issues

may or may not meet safety regulations or best practice recommendations. The


City should strive to replace and repair critical safety equipment and train its

personnel.

2. Due to economics, the City is forced to continue the use of acting chief officers,

until, through retirements and/or training and certification, the acting chief officer

positions can be transitioned into permanent chief officer positions. If the City

seeks to convert the acting positions immediately to permanent appointments, the

City is likely to have one or more of the current acting chief officers return to the

rank of captain, resulting in more captains than the current budget provides for.

Service Level B: Continue Hemet Fire Department Operations, Add Paramedics




personnel.

2. Due to economics, the City is forced to continue the use of acting chief officers


positions can be transitioned into permanent chief officer positions.

3. The City negotiates final costs and contracts with the needed outside vendors to

implement fire paramedic program.

4. The City finalizes currently estimated start-up and annual operating costs for

paramedics using a person experienced in operating a current fire paramedic

program of Hemet’s size.

Service Level C: Continue Hemet Fire Department Operations, Add Headquarters

Personnel after or with Starting the Paramedic Program




2. The City, in addition to adding the paramedic program, recruits and hires a

Battalion Chief level training officer, an experienced, lateral hire fire prevention

officer, and a second Office Assistant.




personnel.


Service Level D: Continue Hemet Fire Department Operations, Add Paramedics,

Headquarters Staff AND Replace the Acting Chief Officers to

Restore Dedicated Ladder Truck Staffing

1. Having added paramedics and critically-needed headquarters positions, it may

still be possible that current Hemet fire operations, methods, training, equipment

and personnel issues may or may not be adequately funded or meet safety

regulations or best practice recommendations. Citygate would recommend a

performance audit to determine personnel and equipment compliance.

2. The City’s permanent Fire Chief should have strong skills in fire administration

and EMS programs.




4. The City maintains supply and equipment funds to a level that ensures safety

regulation compliance.

5. The City restores dedicated 3-personnel-per-shift staffing to the ladder truck.

The services-to-cost comparison table shown below (found in Section 4 of this report) provides

the three-year cost comparison of City service level D to County Option #1. This represents the

closest comparison of service levels that are nearly the same.

It is important to recognize in using Citygate’s cost comparison tables that the County proposal

represents the maximum cost the City can expect. Each fiscal year County Fire bills only their

actual costs, which, in Citygate’s experience, will be most likely 2-5 percent less, or roughly a

$200,000 to $400,000 savings over the County costs in the table below. These savings occur

because the County contract proposal assumes that all personnel assigned to the fire stations are

at the top pay step and that maximum overtime costs are incurred for earned leave absences. This

is rarely the case, as staff turnover results in some personnel being assigned to the Hemet stations

who are at a pay scale below the top step. A review of City staffing and costs demonstrates that,

at the Hemet stations, not all personnel are at the top step and this fact is already reflected in the

City’s FY 2013-14 budgeted costs. Thus, comparatively, the County cost proposal is somewhat

overstated when compared to the City’s, but the exact amount cannot be determined because the

real cost will only be reflected with actual costs that are known at the end of the contract year.


Comparison of City Service Level D to County Option #1 without EMD Costs

Service Level

Alternatives

Service Level

Description

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

1st Year

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

2nd Year

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

3rd Year

Enhanced

Services – 3rd

Year (Savings) or

Expense versus a

County Contract

City Service Levels

City Service

Level “D”

Comparable to

the County

Option #1

City w/staffed

Ladder Truck

+ Medics +

HQ staff

$12,257,908 $11,718,257 $11,726,657 $306,283

County Service Level

County Option

#1

County

w/staffed

Ladder Truck

@ 50% cost to

City

$11,422,146 $10,757,374 $11,420,374

Annual Savings to the City: $835,762 $960,883 $306,283

Below is a second table that compares the cost for each of the four City service levels (A-D)

compared to County Option #1, again reflecting that in three years, once all conversion costs are

stabilized, County Option #1 is less expensive than the City fully restoring its fire services to

City service level D, which is comparable to the County Option #1. At service level D, a County

contract becomes less expensive and has significant other advantages for the City.


Comparison of Service Level and Cost Alternatives without EMD Costs

Service Level

Alternatives

Service Level

Description

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 1st Year

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 2nd Year

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 3rd Year

Enhanced

Services – 3rd

Year (Savings)

or Expense

versus a County

Contract

City Service Levels

A

Current City

Service Level

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck,

no Medics, NO

extra HQ

$10,487,600 $10,487,600 $10,487,600 $(932,774)

B

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck +

Medics, NO extra

HQ

$11,300,318 $10,760,667 $10,769,067 $(651,307)

C

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck +

Medics + HQ staff

$11,724,344 $11,184,693 $11,193,093 $(227,281)

D

City Service Level

Comparable to the

County Option #1

City w/staffed

Ladder Truck +

Medics + HQ staff

$12,257,908 $11,718,257 $11,726,657 $306,283


County Option #1

County w/staffed

Ladder Truck @

50% cost to City

$11,422,146 $10,757,374 $11,420,374

CITYGATE’S RECOMMENDATIONS

If the City wants to further consider going with the County, it should add the fire paramedics

now, which would make converting employees to CAL FIRE employment easier. Then the City

can leave the temporary command staff in place, and negotiate with the City firefighters and the

County for the best-fit conversion package of services, costs, timing, and employee retention. A

final decision can be made after the City is satisfied with the resolution of open issues.

The County contract alternative (County Option #1), even if found to be the most promising

policy choice, has substantial cost and policy issues that need to be resolved in negotiations with

City employees and the County. This is necessary for the City to have all of the required

information to make a fully informed final choice of retaining its own fire department or

contracting with the County.


Based on our understanding of the issues and economics, Citygate makes the following

recommendations:

1. If the City determines that it wants and can afford a higher level of service than the level

provided by the City Fire Department, and the increased level of service is equivalent to

County Fire Department Option #1 to include a staffed ladder truck, then the City should

consider contracting with the County for County Option #1. Contracting with the County

for this level of service is less costly to the City. The City will need to balance cost

savings and the advantages of a larger service provider against the loss of local control

over setting fire personnel costs.

2. If the City believes that a County Fire Department contract is the best service-to-cost

option, then the City should, prior to entering into a contract with the County, negotiate

with the County and, where appropriate, the City Firefighters Union, to resolve the

following issues:

Start-up the City firefighter paramedic program

Identify and accept the level of “Priority Cover” for Hemet fire stations by the

County Fire Department

Identify the impact on Hemet fire personnel who do not have paramedic

certification and are not active paramedic-level firefighters

Submit for transfer verification by CAL FIRE all City fire employee records to

determine who can be transferred, at what rank and pay

Resolve City firefighter return rights to the City, if the contract is stopped

Resolve disposition of earned leave credit

Resolve City employee continuity of medical coverage during the transition

Resolve post-retirement retiree medical costs

Understand the retirement formula applicable to City employees who transfer to

CAL FIRE

Identify retirement reciprocity

Identify the number and cost of City employees on disability (City expense) on

the effective date of a contract

Finalize ownership and maintenance of front-line and reserve apparatus and

equipment.

3. After negotiations with both County and City firefighters to determine the final, hard,

one-time conversion and on-going costs for at least three fiscal years, then the City


Council would be asked to approve final contract documents and a conversion date with

both the County and City Firefighters Union in early to mid spring.

Section 1—Introduction and Background page 11

SECTION 1—INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

1.1 REPORT ORGANIZATION

This report is structured into the following sections that group appropriate information together

for the reader.

Section 1 Introduction and Background: Background facts about the City’s

Fire Services and provision choices.

Section 2 Review of City-Provided Fire Services Issues: A review of the

programs staffing, services and needs.

Section 3 Review of County-Provided Fire Services Issues: A review of the

County’s proposal to provide fire services.

Section 4 Cost of Fire Services Choices and Services: An examination of the

costs of continuing Hemet-provided fire services contrasted with

contracting with the County.

Section 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of a County Fire Service Contract:

A discussion of the issues with fire service delivery via a contract

with another entity.

1.1.1 Goals of Report

This document provides technical information about how fire services are provided, legally

regulated, and how the City’s Fire Department currently operates. This information includes

findings and recommendations for the City leadership to discuss. As a comparison, the level of

services proposed by the County is reviewed along with costs and the issues arising from

contracting for fire services.

1.1.2 Limitations of Report

This report is designed to be a summary document of key issues, findings, and recommendations,

all of which are necessary for Hemet’s leadership to understand the fire service issues and best-

fit next steps.

Citygate’s report does not include either a financial audit or a program compliance audit of every

possible fire services legal requirement. Rather, this study is a high-level review of the Fire

Department organization and the needs of the community. These are then compared using best

practices and our experience against the alternative service level choices and costs. Thus, our

work is not a detailed review of the Department’s personnel and their performance of every

aspect of their job descriptions or to other fire service requirements of the City of Hemet.


While this report can provide a framework for the discussion of fire services for Hemet, neither

this report nor the Citygate consulting team can make the final decisions or cost out in detail

every possible alternative. Once final strategic policy direction is given by the City Council, City

staff can conduct any final implementation work, either for internal changes or a contract for

service.

1.2 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND PROJECT APPROACH

Citygate used several tools to gather, understand, and model information about Hemet Fire

Services for this study. We started by making a large document request to the City to gain

background information on costs, current and prior service levels, the history of service-level

decisions, and what other prior studies, if any, had to say. We also received the latest proposal

and costs from the County Fire Department. We then conferred multiple times with City staff,

the City’s Interim Fire Chief, the City’s firefighter’s leadership and County Fire Department

leadership. Some of these meetings occurred in Hemet. We also reviewed all prior City Council

reports on fire services and listened to the early 2013 Council meeting video and audio files to

gain a perspective on the community’s view.

Included in this report is an abbreviated review of Fire Department headquarters systems,

including both emergency and non-response-related services, such as fire prevention, training

and administration. Citygate uses the Commission on Fire Accreditation International self-

assessment criteria and various National Fire Protection Association Standards as the basis for

this review.

1.3 FIRE SERVICE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK AND SERVICE DESIGN NEEDS

While in the Executive Summary we stated the policy fact that the level of fire services provided

by a local government agency is a local choice issue in the United States, there are operational

and safe operating regulations to be complied with. In addition to restrictions on local

government finance, there have been a number of newer state and federal laws, regulations, and

court cases over the last fourteen years that limit the flexibility of local governments in

determining their staffing levels, training, and methods of operation. These are given an

abbreviated overview below:

1999 OSHA Staffing Policies – Federal Occupational Health and Safety

Administration (OSHA) applied the confined space safety regulations for work

inside tanks and underground spaces to America’s firefighters. This requires in

atmospheres that are “IDLH” (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health) that

there be teams of two inside and two outside in constant communication, and with

the outside pair equipped and ready to rescue the inside pair. This situation occurs

in building fires where the fire and smoke conditions are serious enough to


require the wearing of self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). This is

commonly called the “2-in/2-out” policy. This policy requires that firefighters

enter serious building fires in teams of two, while two more firefighters are

outside and immediately ready to rescue them should trouble arise.

While under OSHA policy one of the outside “two-out” personnel can also be the

incident commander (typically a chief officer) or fire apparatus operator, this

person must be fully suited-up in protective clothing, have a breathing apparatus

donned except for the face piece, meet all physical requirements to enter IDLH

atmospheres, and thus be ready to immediately help with the rescue of interior

firefighters in trouble.

May 2001 National Staffing Guidelines – The National Fire Protection

Association (NFPA) Standard on Career Fire Service Deployment was issued

twelve years ago. While advisory to local governments, it has become locally

adopted in places and used by neighboring communities in designing fire services.

NFPA 1710 calls for four-person fire crew staffing, arriving on one or two

apparatus as a “company.” The initial attack crew should arrive at the emergency

within four minutes travel time, 90 percent of the time, and the total effective

response force (first alarm assignment) shall arrive within eight minutes travel

time, 90 percent of the time.

Incident Commanders at Hazardous Materials Incidents – The on-scene Incident

Commanders (Battalion Chiefs) at Hazardous Materials Incidents must have

certification compliant with NFPA 472, Standard for Emergency Response to

Hazardous Materials Incidents. This is also now an OSHA requirement.

Cal/OSHA Requirements – Among the elements required is a safety orientation

for new employees, a hazard communications system for employees to

communicate hazards to supervisors, the Cal/OSHA process for post-injury

reviews, the required annual report of injuries, and a standard for safety work

plans. Employers have many different responsibilities under the Occupational

Safety and Health Act of 1970 and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

Initially, OSHA focused its efforts on the private sector; more recently, it has

turned its attention to the public sector and specifically the fire service.

The above “sea changes” in personal and agency liability mean that not just any firefighter can,

or should be, an incident commander on serious, sustained incidents. Along with increasing

firefighter deaths nationally and Federal OSHA citations to fire commanders, the trend has

started for requiring significant training and certification of incident commanders.

Fire captains, as front-line crew supervisors, are not typically trained or experienced enough to

be full-time incident commanders. They are “front-line supervisors” in charge of one crew, and


as such, must stay in close contact with that crew during firefighting activities out of the direct

sight of the incident commander. The first or second arriving fire captain is trained to take

command, but only temporarily until the arrival of an incident commander (chief officer).

Therefore if a local government agency provides fire services at all, they must be provided with

the safety of the public and firefighter in mind. Additionally, the chief officers, as scene incident

commanders, must be well trained, competent and are liable for mistakes that violate the law. An

under-staffed, under-led token force will not only be unable to stop a fire, it opens the agency up

for real liability should the fire department fail.

1.4 FIRE SERVICE HEADQUARTERS NEEDS

With regard to fire administration services, the federal and state safety regulations and fire

personnel best practices result in the need for a management team that is the proper size, and is

adequately trained and supported. There are increasing regulations to be dealt with in operating

fire services, and the proper hiring, training, and supervision of line employees requires an

equally serious commitment to leadership and general management functions. A department of

Hemet’s size needs to be effectively led, trained, and supervised.

This need is stated in the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Recommended Standard

1201 – Standard for Providing Emergency Services to the Public which states in part, “the

[department] shall have a leader and organizational structure that facilitates efficient and

effective management of its resources to carry out its mandate as required [in its mission

statement].” Based on the experience of our consultants in managing fire services and in the

consultancy design of fire services meeting best practices, these questions must be addressed for

headquarters functions:

Are there an adequate number of management and support staff members?

Is there an effective distribution and assignment of duties to accomplish the

management needs of the Department?

Are the proper administrative procedures in place to operate the Department?

Does the Department have enough managers to maintain an emergency

management span of control ratio of one supervisor for every three to seven

subordinates as suggested by the National Incident Management System (NIMS)

and NFPA 1006 Standard for Rescue Technical Professional Qualifications?

Do the managers have rank level consistent with the International Association of

Fire Chiefs (IAFC) Officer Development Handbook to carry out their duties? The

IAFC recommends four levels of officer development: Supervising Fire Officer

(Company Officer, Captain); Managing Fire Officer (Battalion Chief);

Administrative Fire Officer (Division or Deputy Chief); and Executive Fire


Officer (Fire Chief). Within each level, the handbook recommends specific

training, education, and experience, which, if followed, should develop well-

rounded and prepared fire officers.

These, of course, are not the only safety and operational standards to be met by a fire department,

but represent a basis for recommending an adequate department administration team fitted to the

particular characteristics of a community and the size and level of service being provided by its

fire department.

Adequate, supervised, verified training is needed to prevent firefighter and civilian tragedies,

which have enormous long-term emotional and fiscal impacts on not only the firefighters and

their families, but the agency and the community as well. Charleston had to completely replace

its fire department executive leadership, bring in an outside training and leadership team, and

totally revamp its entire training and incident management processes after a tragic multiple

firefighter fatality. As Hemet is also painfully aware, tragedies also occur in wildland

firefighting. Had Charleston maintained currency with the best practices of the fire service and

required standardized, verifiable, ongoing, and realistic training, it is likely the nine firefighters

that died would be alive today and firefighting in Charleston would be “business as usual.”

Fire prevention is also an important issue for every community. It only makes common sense to

prevent fires where possible to avoid the cost of a large firefighting force to suppress multiple,

preventable, fire occurrences. Fire prevention includes any activity that decreases the incidence

and severity of uncontrolled fire. Once a building has completed construction and taken

occupancy, the responsibility for oversight of its use and maintenance throughout the remainder

of its life switches from the Building Official to the Fire Marshal. The fire code is then used as

the document that ensures that a proper level of fire and life safety exists in the building

throughout the remainder of its use.

Usually, the methods used by the fire service focus on inspection, which includes engineering,

code enforcement, public information, public education, and fire investigation. Preliminary and

subsequent fire investigations of all fires are essential to understand the sources of the

community’s fire problems. Accidental fires may reveal weaknesses in the codes, in the building

inspection process, or in other aspects of processes. Suspicious fires may reveal an arson

problem. The general questions to address for an adequate fire prevention program are:

Is there an adopted fire code and staffing plan to meet the needs of new

construction, existing commercial occupancy inspection, and public education?

Are inspectors trained?

Do trained investigators investigate fires?

Does the fire investigation system coordinate with law enforcement to bring about

the appropriate arrests and convictions in arson cases?


How are ongoing fire code safety inspections managed?

How does the Department handle hazardous materials code enforcement?

Is there an appropriate fee schedule for fire prevention activities to the business

community?

1.5 FIRE CREW DEPLOYMENT MEASURES AND RECOMMENDED PRACTICES

Most urban and suburban communities, if asked, would probably expect that fires be confined to

the room or nearby area of fire origin, and that medical patients have their injuries stabilized and

be transported to the appropriate care location. Thus, the challenge faced by a city is to maintain

an equitable level of fire service deployment across all similar population density service areas in

a community without adding significantly more resources as demand for services grows and

traffic congestion increases, slowing response times.

The Insurance Services Office (ISO) Fire Department Grading Schedule in urban/suburban areas

would like to see first-due fire engines stations spaced 1.5 miles apart and ladder trucks spaced

2.5 miles apart, which, given travel speeds on surface streets, is a 3- to 4-minute travel time for

first-due engines and a 7- to 8-minute travel time for first-due ladder trucks.

The newer National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) guideline 1710 on career-staffed fire

services deployment in urban/suburban areas suggests a 4-minute travel time for the initial fire

apparatus response and 8 minutes travel time maximum for the follow-on units.

The ISO grades community fire defenses on a 10-point scale, with Class 1 being the best.

Historically, the Hemet has been evaluated as a Class 4/9 department, meaning the fire engine

and ladder truck coverage is provided at the suburban service level with the goal being to reduce

the risk of serious fire spread, generating conflagrations in the community.

For many reasons, it is not necessary for an agency to deploy with the sole objective of meeting

the ISO measures. For underwriting purposes, the ISO criteria are actually designed to evaluate a

department’s ability to stop a building fire conflagration. The ISO system does not address the

adequacy of response to small fires, auto fires, outdoor fires and emergency medical incidents. In

addition, underwriters today can issue fire premiums in Grading Schedule “bands” such as 3-5,

recognizing the above a factors. Also the ISO can issue a separate rating for individual

commercial and industrial buildings that have built-in fire prevention features and, as such, give

these safer buildings a single rating of Class 1, for example, even if the city itself has a different

overall ISO rating.

Thus, if an agency only tries to meet the ISO or NFPA station placement criteria, it does not

necessarily deliver better outcomes to the most typical fire department responses.


Emergency medical incidents have situations with the most severe time constraints. In a heart

attack that stops the heart, a trauma that causes severe blood loss, or in a respiratory emergency,

the brain begins to die in 4 to 6 minutes without oxygen.

Not only heart attacks, but also other emergencies, can cause oxygen deprivation to the brain.

Heart attacks make up a small percentage; drowning, choking, trauma, constrictions, or other

similar events have the same effect on the brain and the same time constraints. In a building fire,

a small incipient fire can grow to involve the entire room in a 4- to 5-minute time frame. The

point in time where the entire room becomes involved in fire is called “flashover,” when

everything is burning, life is no longer possible, and the fire will shortly spread beyond the room

of origin.

If fire service response is to achieve positive outcomes in severe EMS situations and incipient

fire situations, all the companies must arrive, size up the situation, and deploy effective measures

before brain damage or death occurs, or the fire spreads beyond the room of origin.

Importantly, positive outcomes are the goal, and therefore key factors are fire crew size and

response time, which can be calculated to allow efficient fire station spacing to optimize the

outcome of each fire department response.

Section 2—Review of City-Provided Fire Services Issues page 18

SECTION 2—REVIEW OF CITY-PROVIDED FIRE SERVICES ISSUES

2.1 OVERVIEW OF CITY GEOGRAPHY AND INCIDENT STATISTICS

The City’s area includes approximately 27.847 square miles and has a population of

approximately 78,657. The City of San Jacinto is situated on Hemet’s northern boundary, and the

County of Riverside borders Hemet on all other sides. The City contains approximately 40,000

housing units, of which about one-quarter (10,000) are mobile homes.

The City is fairly isolated when compared to many other cities in the greater Los Angeles basin.

As a result, the City of Hemet does not have the same access to mutual aid emergency services

as do many other cities, and it has limited access to nearby automatic aid or contract services.

The last assigned ISO rating placed the City in Class 4/9, and the call volume was 11,2261

incidents for the 2012 calendar year.

The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) requires fire departments to report

incidents broken into dozens of sub-types. From the Fire Department response report attached to

its January fire services proposal, a summation of major incident types shows this distribution of

emergencies:

Table 1—Summation of Major Incident Types in City of Hemet

Category Count Percent Comment

Building Fires 55 .49% Fires in major buildings and mobile homes, not out

buildings such as sheds.

Grass/Wildland Fires 23 .20% Major categories, not those in containers such as fire

pits and barbeques.

Emergency Medical 9,752 87% All types of medical events and accidents.

Other 1,396 12.4% Small outdoor, trash and auto fires, false alarms,

citizen assists, technical rescues.

Total 11,226 100%

For a population and square mileage of Hemet’s size, the quantity of building fires at a rate of

about 4.5 per month is very typical. So are the wildland fire and other types of response counts.

What is very atypical is the 87 percent rate of medical emergencies and the total quantity of

emergencies per year in Hemet. At a rate of 11,200-13,000 incidents per year in the past and near

term, this rate is about double that of other communities of Hemet’s size. The causes for this are

1 City Fire Proposal, page 11 dated 2-5-2013


varied, but are typically driven by a population that is under covered by medical and preventive

health care coverage and age demographics. This increases the use of 911 services for medical

assistance. It is unknown at the time of this writing how and if Federal Health Care Reform will

change this situation in the United States.

2.2 HEMET FIRE DEPARTMENT CURRENT STAFFING

The City of Hemet Fire Department currently staffs a minimum of fifteen personnel on-duty 24

hours per day. This includes one Acting Battalion Chief, four Fire Captains, five Fire Engineers

and five Firefighters. Four fire stations are staffed with an Engine Company (pumper) consisting

of a 3-person crew comprised of a Captain, Engineer, and Firefighter. The fifth fire station/crew

was closed due to budget reductions. This station now houses, under a rental agreement, a

paramedic ambulance as part of the County’s regional ambulance contract with American

Medical Response (AMR).

One fire station also houses a 2-person response squad that can assist at mild to moderate status

medical emergencies along with an ambulance. Another station also houses the Department’s

aerial ladder truck, which is “cross-staffed” by the engine crew. This means that if a building fire

or other technical rescue requires the ladder truck, it responds instead of the engine if the engine

is not already on another call. Thus, what Hemet can currently field to a building fire is 3 engines

and 1 ladder truck (if the co-located engine crew is in the station).

Prior to the budget reductions, Hemet had 5 engine companies staffed, a dedicated crew on the

ladder truck, and a Battalion Chief. For all three duty shifts this was a staffing of 19, or 57 total

personnel. Taking all of the recession-caused reductions into account, the daily staffing has

fallen to 15 per shift, or 45 total.

But even the loss of a staffed engine and a staffed ladder truck does not tell the entire impact of

the recession-driven reductions. The headquarters team was severely reduced; some managers

retired or left, and there have been several interim or short duration Fire Chiefs. Why, how, and

when all this occurred has been well documented elsewhere. At the high point of Hemet Fire

Service staffing in FY 2008-2009, the Department had a total of five other full-time headquarters

positions for a total of 62 personnel (57+5).

The reality today is the total staffing has dropped to 48, with the remaining headquarters team

consisting of four staff in acting positions as interim chief officers (1 Fire Chief and 3 Battalion

Chiefs) and one Administrative Assistant. All of the current-acting chiefs are, in reality, Fire

Captains; three of whom were the Ladder Truck Captains and one was the fifth engine Captain.

All of the permanent chief officers are gone; there is no training officer or fire prevention officer

or second office specialist.

This Citygate services and cost options review is not a performance audit, and as such, we did

not review the personnel records, training records and certifications of the acting chief officers.


Those we met are all very caring, committed individuals doing their best to help the Hemet Fire

Department stay in operation. However, it would be surprising to Citygate to find many, if any,

small suburban fire departments with five Fire Captains to be fully trained, certified and

credentialed to be Battalion Chiefs and Fire Chief all at once. During the recession and during

unexpected vacancies, interim appointments are made particularly in smaller departments, but

this exposes the City to liability unless a trained and credentialed individual fills the interim

position.

The current fire engine personnel are trained to the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) level,

which is far less in training and allowed skills of a paramedic. While some of the Hemet staff has

received paramedic training elsewhere, the Hemet Fire Department does not currently provide

paramedic service. This issue will be discussed in a following sub-section.

2.3 CITYGATE’S MINIMUM FIRE HEADQUARTERS RECOMMENDATIONS

When Citygate does performance audits, master plans and merger studies for suburban fire

departments, the common question asked is what does a minimum headquarters team look like

for a two- to five-station, career fire department?

Hemet needs adequate chief officer coverage to meet all of these needs on a 24/7/365 basis.

Citygate typically recommends for a safe and effective headquarters staff:

1 Fire Chief

3 Battalion Chiefs to provide 24/7/365 incident command and station

supervision/training

1 Administrative Assistant office support position.

This minimum set of positions requires that the shift Battalion Chiefs also handle administrative

duties such as training, fleet and facility management, EMS program quality assurance, and

community disaster preparedness. To do so, means they have the time, in addition to going to

emergency incidents and supervising multiple fire captains and their station crews. The higher

the volume of emergency work and training program duties, the less time they have to do

anything according to best practices and the greater need there is for additional administrative

headquarters staff.

Given Hemet’s population and types and quantities of emergency incidents, it is very likely the

Battalion shifts on 24-hour shift duty will not be able to handle the entire administrative

workload. As such, the following 40-hour positions also are likely necessary for a minimum,

effective headquarters team in Hemet:

1 Fire Marshal or fire inspector, which can be a non-safety position

1 Training Officer


1 Emergency Medical Services oversight position (this can be a part-time contract

position)

1 Fire Prevention Clerk for fire prevention needs and back-up when the other

position is on earned leave

A second office support position for fire prevention needs and back-up when the

other position is on earned leave.

In Section 2.7.1 and Section 4 of this report on Hemet Fire Services, the future headquarters

needs of Hemet will be addressed.

2.4 STATIONS AND RESPONSE TIMES

As prior City reports have identified, station locations and response times are, of course,

important to every community. In 1998, Hemet passed what is known as Measure C, requiring

the City to develop and adopt a Public Services and Facilities Element, for inclusion in the 1992

General Plan, setting minimum standards for several public services in Hemet, including fire

protection. In 1992, the City Council approved the Public Services and Facilities Element by

Resolution No. 2981 and then approved Resolution No. 2994 authorizing a Public Services and

Facilities Element to be submitted to the voters for ratification. The voters approved Ballot

Measure EE and the Public Services and Facilities Element was subsequently incorporated into

the 1992 General Plan. Technically, the correct reference to the Measure with which the City

must comply is Measure EE. However, the community has embraced the reference to “Measure

C” and that is the only term commonly used over the past decade and therefore we continue to

use that as the reference for consistency.

These actions resulted in a performance standard for fire that is phrased as: “A response time of

5 minutes or less, for 80 percent of fire and emergency medical calls, provided on both a

citywide and response area basis.”

Response time is actually comprised of three components: (1) dispatch processing; (2) crew

turnout where the crew hears the dispatch, dons protective clothing, and begins travel; (3) then

the actual travel time across the streets. The sum of these three measures is also called response

time, but more completely, total response time. Best practices national advice on response times

suggests either a total or just travel time measure be used. In either case, the agency stating the

response measure has to define the start and end times. Thus, a complete statement would say,

“Response time is defined as…” Best practice advice for the three components is 60 seconds for

dispatch processing, 80 seconds for turnout time, and 4 minutes travel time in urban/suburban

areas for a total of 6:20 minutes/seconds. National best practices also recommend that response

times be measured as a percent of goal completion, such as 90 percent of incidents by minute X;

the fire service has moved away from the use of an average measure.


In the early 2013 City staff reports and fire service proposals, the Hemet Fire Department

reported average response times, not percentile time measures either citywide or by defined

zone. Average response time measures only state where the “middle” of the data range lays. This

measure does not state how many calls and at what response time they were past the middle.

Said this way, an average five-minute measure could have many response times as far out as 10

minutes. It was not in Citygate’s scope for this fire services options and costs review to

determine what the response times actually are, or if they meet the Measure C desired outcome

of responding to 80 percent of the calls within a 5 minute response time.

The reality is that, at the moment, Hemet has made the choice, based on available revenues, to

operate four fire stations. Thus, the City and County Fire Department proposals were based on

this “baseline” staffing/station level and it is these proposals and costs that are being reviewed

here. As the City Council makes on-going fire service decisions, the City can develop updated

clearly documented response time measures in determining the need for and location of a 5th

or

even 6th

fire station based on growth.

However, it must be pointed out by Citygate that while the City’s RFP for fire services

appropriately requires response time compliance, and defines the start and end time measurement

points, the measures below from the City’s RFP do not clarify Measure C permanently as they

are only being used for the first time in an RFP.

The City’s Fire Service RFP requested:

4.1 Response Time:

Assume responsibility for the delivery of fire protection and other emergency

services with the boundaries of the City of Hemet. Provider will respond to all

calls for service in five minutes or less 80% of the time for first-due fire unit.

For reported fire responses, a fire apparatus with a minimum of three fire

fighters, hose, water, and the ability to pump water at 1,500 gallons a minute or

more shall arrive within six minutes or less 80% of the time.

Response time is defined as the time the alarm is received at the initial dispatch

agency until the arrival of the responding unit is parked with the responding

personnel ready to exit the vehicle.

Given the lack of definition of response time in Measure C and given that the City does not have

current data based on best response time measurement practices, both the City and the County

proposal could only say they would comply with Measure C and they would provide the staffing

at four stations as requested by the City in the RFP. Without data and a revised City policy that

both defines and measures response time, the City is unable to determine whether either the City

or the County as the fire service provider complies with Measure C. What the City can say is that

both providers would staff the current number of fire stations.


Citygate believes that to make a fire services provider decision, the City can make its decision

based on the number of stations and crews provided and the proposed expense. This provides the

closest approximation of cost to service from a physical capacity on duty point. Based on four

funded fire stations, at this point, the response times are what they are. The Measure C

definitions can be clarified down the road and annual reporting requirements set for either fire

department to comply with.

Finding #1: Fire and emergency medical incident outcomes are most effective

where response times for 90 percent of incidents consist of either

(1) 4 minutes travel time for first-due engines, or (2) 6:20

minutes/seconds total response time for the first-due unit capable

of starting effective intervention for the type of emergency.

Hemet Measure C phrases response time goals as 5 minutes or less,

for 80 percent of fire and emergency medical calls, provided on

both a citywide and response areas basis. The City does not have

current response time data based on best practice response time

measurements. As a result, both the City and County proposals

could only state that they would comply with Hemet Measure C

(Measure EE) and that they would provide the staffing at four

stations as requested by the City in its RFP. Without accurate

response time data and a revised City policy that both defines and

measures response time, the City is unable to determine whether

either the City or the County, as the fire service provider, complies

with Measure C.

2.5 FIRE PREVENTION AND OTHER SPECIALTY SERVICES

Pre-recession, the Hemet Fire Department provided all of the essential services normally

expected from a smaller suburban agency. These included, but were not limited to, fire

prevention, public education, disaster preparedness, hazardous materials incident response, and a

multitude of allied agency cooperative agreements or contracts. They are to be commended for

doing so. During the recession, the Department got even more creative with the use of grants and

partnerships to keep these programs, with some at a more modest level.

The program that appears to have suffered the greatest decline is fire prevention. There is not

currently a dedicated fire preventions staff. The last trained fire prevention officer has left the

Department. As of this writing, new construction plan reviews and inspections will be handled

under contract by the City’s Building Department staff/contractor. This only helps buildings

getting built.


The Fire Code is a maintenance code; the Building Code is a construction code. The handoff

occurs when the new building or tenant occupancy is given a Certificate of Occupancy at final

inspection. Then the Fire Code and fire staff inspect the building over its lifetime for compliance

during operation. Currently, the on-going fire prevention duties are assigned as “other duties” to

one acting Battalion Chief who is doing the best he can. At this point, inspections, fire permits,

weed abatement, and fee collections are incidental at best.

The other acting Battalion Chiefs are coping with disaster preparedness and public education,

plus anything else in addition to the primary duties of crew training, personnel and emergency

incident management. The office support staff is down to one person who has no relief during

days off. This makes it difficult to do more than the most important office functions.

Based on Citygate’s experience with many other fire agencies, it would be surprising if the

Hemet Fire Department is able to keep up with mandates for training provision, training

verification, fire code inspections, fire code permits, permit fees and second-tier priorities like

public education and disaster preparedness. Even if things are being done correctly, they need to

be rigorously documented, because if there is an accident or injury to an employee there needs to

be proof of compliance when Cal/OSHA or others investigate. Absence of compliance or

documentation of compliance worsens the City’s liability exposure.

2.6 PARAMEDIC SERVICES AND EMERGENCY MEDICAL DISPATCH (EMD)

Currently many fire departments in the County provide a paramedic-firefighter level of service

from career-staffed fire engines on a 24/7/365 basis. This ensures a high level of initial patient

care, should the regionally-provided paramedic ambulance not be close by to the incident. The

ambulance contractor, AMR, has to space out its ambulances to maintain response time

compliance as directed by the County taking into account historical workload patterns. If a fire

department is not providing neighborhood-based fire engine paramedics, the City is relying on

the spacing, quantity, and availability of ambulances to ensure paramedic coverage.

The Hemet Fire Department, for a variety of reasons over the years, has never started a

firefighter paramedic program. The most recent recession-driven staffing reductions further

delayed the consideration of establishing a fire-engine-based paramedic level of service.

The City does not have data readily available to establish how quickly AMR paramedic

ambulances arrive on a scene. Nevertheless, to provide a standard of care more consistent with

the rest of the urban areas in the County and to provide a comparable level-of-service bid to

compare to the County Fire Department proposal that includes providing paramedic engines, the

Hemet Fire Department staff included a paramedic program option in its early 2013 services

proposal.

In order to keep costs low, the Department staff identified several outside parties that could assist

with program start-up and mandated quality oversight programs. For equipment and supplies,


Fire Department staff stated they could buy used cardiac monitor/defibrillators. For paramedic

training the staff proposed licensing current firefighters that already held paramedic licenses

from elsewhere, and then over time as firefighters retired or resigned, the Department would only

hire firefighter-paramedics.

In the February and March City Council hearings on the fire service proposals, the Fire Chief at

the time called this Hemet Fire Department paramedic program essentially “free” due to the

cooperative agreements. However, City management, current Fire management staff, and

Citygate have since found the “free” program statement to be overly optimistic.

There are important cost elements that the City will have to pay for if it starts a paramedic

program. First, the purchase of used cardiac monitor/defibrillators was found to be based on

substandard equipment. City staff feels they have to go with new equipment and maintenance

agreements. Second, the program costs have to include the incentive pay to firefighters serving

as paramedics. Third, the major outside partnership to provide “free” clinical oversight by a

private company in exchange for paramedic internship slots on Hemet units was flawed and the

private company now wants $15,000 annually. Fourth, staff and then Citygate found the supply

and small hardware costs to be stated below the more likely annual amounts needed.

While the hospital stood by its proposal to provide the medical director oversight at no cost,

AMR made the business decision to withdraw their clinical oversight “free” proposal leaving

only the private vendor option at $15,000 annually. Once Citygate was retained, we went over all

of the paramedic program work to date and built a more realistic implementation and cost model

to be used by the City going forward.

As of October 2013, there is still not a final set of deal points with the private clinical oversight

vendor, or the hospital for medical direction. Based on the private clinical oversight vendor’s

opinion, staff wants to phase-in fire paramedics over a three-year period. Based on this and

dispatch costs to be addressed in the next section, an updated set of costs for the paramedic

program was presented to Citygate in September 2013. However, as will be shown in the costs

section of this report (Section 4), the staff costs were still flawed and understated for equipment

costs.

While all this seems strange, it is actually understandable and somewhat common when a

command staff tries to develop and cost something they have never done before and have no

experience in. The same is true of the City Hall staff, as they used the Fire Chief’s proposal and

follow-up costs. The Fire Department’s passion for paramedics and enthusiasm for a low-cost

approach is commendable. However, the fact at this point is that this study has to provide

updated, realistic paramedic program costs and phasing if the City is to implement a paramedic

program.

A revised cost estimate for a paramedic program is provided in Section 2.6.2 of this report.


2.6.1 Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD)

There was considerable emphasis placed on the need for Hemet to upgrade to Emergency

Medical Dispatch (EMD). This program has two key components:

Pre-arrival self-help instructions – the dispatcher tells the caller how to provide

basic first aid, CPR, etc.

Differential dispatch – based on the call severity, not all units, fire or ambulance,

are sent to every request for help.

Many 911 centers today provide the first step of pre-arrival self-help. Doing this requires

dispatcher training, dispatch computer software, and on-going continuing education. The time

impact per call can be significant, so dispatch centers typically increase their staffing so 911 calls

can still be answered and field units coordinated while another dispatcher provides the caller

assistance.

Differential dispatch is very different from self-help EMD. It trains the dispatcher to use very

sophisticated software decision trees to ask the caller what is wrong and then send only the most

appropriate resource. In some cases, that could be dispatching only a basic life support

ambulance (BLS) or a paramedic (ALS) ambulance. In more severe cases, the fire unit is also

sent. Large agencies use these systems to not send scarce resources on less severe incidents.

However, the dispatcher training, certification, software, clinical oversight and audits are all very

expensive. As with self-help, there are more dispatchers on-duty to handle the increased time on

the phone with the callers. Finally, there is a significant liability with this program due to the

small chance of not dispatching the correct resources, quickly enough. But this is mitigated in

large systems such as San Diego City or Oakland where at peak hours of the day, they often run

low on available fire units in some areas and so the liability risk is acceptable to these agencies

as they allocate their scarce fire resources at peak times.

As the Hemet Fire Department researched EMD costs, it tried to get assistance from the State.

The Department was successful in getting verbal commitments for grants to provide dispatch

consoles, software, and training. However, the State will not assist with the annual cost of added

dispatchers. This is a cost Hemet will entirely have to bear.

In the Fire Chief’s presentation early in 2013, it sounded like the justification for implementing

EMD via the Hemet police/fire dispatch center was to relieve pressure on Hemet fire units when

multiple calls for service occurred and to provide callers a higher level of service with self-help

and for the City program to be comparable to the County level of service.

However, as for differential dispatch, there are two problems. First, currently even Riverside

County does not use differential dispatch. The County continues to always send the

neighborhood fire engine in order to err on the side of the best possible customer service.

Second, with only four fire stations needed in Hemet 24/7/365 for firefighting and effective


response times to all neighborhoods, if differential dispatch were used, Hemet could not save

money by closing or deferring the addition of fire stations. If Hemet did stop sending an

available engine to a medical emergency and began telling some of the 911 callers to wait for an

ambulance, this would be a different level of service than Hemet now provides. Thus, if Hemet

implemented EMD with differential dispatch, it would result in all new costs, with no significant

cost off-sets in the fire budget other than small wear-and-tear costs on the fire engines.

Citygate found no Hemet studies (only verbal statements) that looked at the types of medical

emergencies versus the differential dispatch criteria to determine how and if EMD would even

yield operational savings. Nor was there a review by an EMS system Medical Advisor

(physician) regarding the level of EMD appropriate for the patient cases seen in Hemet.

Therefore, with little or no City off-set budget savings and with the significant added cost of

implementing EMD, Citygate believes that a higher priority use of any available City funds is to

restore adequate headquarters services to the Hemet Fire Department. Citygate would not place a

high priority on securing EMD immediately at the City’s sole expense.

If the City, nevertheless, wants to provide an EMD service in the community, the City could as

another option, contract fire or all 911 dispatch services to the County, which already has an

EMD program. Many suburban agencies contract for this and other reasons with regional fire

communication centers, while maintaining their local departments. This option and cost has not

been researched for Hemet.

Finding #2: Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) is not a critical need for the

City, since most, if not all, of the medical calls, given their nature,

will still have an engine or squad response. EMD, in and of itself,

will not allow the closure of one or more of the four firefighting

engines needed for citywide adequate response time.

Finding #3: While EMD might free up some fire units to be more available to

perform simultaneous demand at peak hours of the day, or avoid

some wear-and-tear costs on some fire apparatus, the direct cost

savings will not be close to the expected City cost of adding 9

dispatchers at a low-side estimate of $739,075.

2.6.2 Overall Paramedic Program Costs

The City Fire Department proposal in early 2013 stated there would be zero costs for the

paramedic program, as AMR and others would provide all services, supplies and hardware. The

outside partner letters attached to the proposal seemed to reflect this, but not with the specificity

of contract terms that Citygate would normally see.


In the March 26th

update to the City Council, the City Manager’s staff report on fire services

discussed how City staff had conducted additional due diligence research on the “free”

paramedic program. In that staff report, the following, but still conceptual, costs were identified:

1. No cost was cited for Hemet firefighter wage differential for firefighter-

paramedics, but a cost was supposed to have been contained in the Fire

Department original proposal in the salaries line item. But without the back-up

data, Citygate and City staff cannot determine the exact amount.

2. Start-up costs totaling $87,900 to include 4 refurbished monitor/defibrillators.

3. Overtime for paramedic continuing education as required by the State was not in

the Fire Department budget proposal, as the Fire Chief believed all training could

occur on-duty. (Citygate finds this impossible to achieve.)

4. To add EMD, a City cost of $673,584 for nine additional dispatchers.

By September 2013, the now Acting Fire Chief, other Fire Department staff, and the City Hall

team had further clarified the paramedic program costs, phased across three years, summarized

here:

Table 2—City Paramedic Costs NO EMD – Staff, September 2013

Item Cost

EMS Clinical Training & Oversight $15,000

Paramedic pay stipend for 15 firefighters $144,153

New Cardiac Monitors @ $35,000 each. 3 for 1st year $105,000

Cardiac Monitor annual service plan @ 975/unit $2,925

Small equipment and supplies $2,431

Cardiac Monitors annual replacement fund @ 5-year life $10,000

Based on 3-year Phasing, 1st Year estimate $279,884

2nd

Year (could include EMD which needs more lead time) $234,198

3rd

Year $161,528

EMD Program additional dispatchers $673,584

2nd

Year City phased cost + EMD $907,782

The Citygate team spent considerable time, at the City Manager’s request, to review all of the

paramedic program documents and cost estimates. The Citygate consultants have actually

started, managed, and audited fire paramedic programs in their careers. Citygate found the late


summer 2013 costing, phasing, and lack of final, executable contracts with outside vendors

incomplete and very problematic. The acting chief officers did their best to solidify costing, but

they still face the challenge, as does the City Hall staff, of having never operated a fire

department paramedic program.

Citygate determined that the Fire Department, in the fall of 2013, already had 9 firefighters that

held paramedic licenses that just needed activation. Another 4 firefighter-paramedics are to be

hired before the end of the year due to attrition, bringing the total to 13. Then there are two Fire

Engineers who hold paramedic licenses. If they are activated and given paramedic pay, until

more firefighter-paramedics are hired, the Department could field 15 paramedics this fiscal year.

At four engines per day, and with three duty platoons, the Department needs a minimum of 12

paramedics, with the additional medic per shift off-setting some need for vacation relief.

Therefore, the Department has the personnel to start paramedics on each engine, on each shift,

likely by the end of the current fiscal year.

As Citygate followed-up on the County Fire Department proposal, we clarified that, in fact, the

County, due to State personnel rules, would not be able to transfer in Hemet firefighters that are

not already being used and compensated as paramedics (more will be said on this in the County

Fire Department Section of this report). Based on this and the number of paramedics being

potentially available now for patient care reasons, as well as the possibility of a decision now or

later to contract with the County, Citygate believes the Hemet Fire Paramedic program should be

implemented fully, this fiscal year. Based on this opinion, the Hemet City Manager asked

Citygate to prepare a complete budget for the proposed paramedic program based on a full first

year implementation. Using City-provided cost figures as well as our experience elsewhere,

Citygate’s paramedic budget based on information to date is:

Table 3—Citygate Paramedic Program Costs – October 2013

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Start-up & Operating Annual Total

without EMD $812,718 $273,067 $281,467

EMD Staff* $739,075 $739,075 $739,075

Poss. Max Total $1,551,793 $1,012,142 $1,020,542

*Citygate’s estimated EMD staff cost includes not only the salary and benefits estimated by the

City, but also overtime to cover vacancies due to approved leaves.

These updated paramedic costs will be used to compare the costs of a Hemet-provided Fire

Department to the County Fire Department proposal in the cost analysis section of this report.


Finding #4: Projected paramedic costs, even as adjusted by Citygate, are on the

low side at best. The unknown is the longer-term cost of services

to be provided by the contracted clinical oversight and training

provider.

2.7 THE CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT PROPOSAL FOR CONTINUED INDEPENDENT OPERATION

The City Fire Department proposal, as updated in March 2013 to the City Council, provides for:

Four fire stations, each staffed with a crew of three personnel per day, one of

whom is a paramedic

The continued lease of Station #5 to AMR for an ambulance location

A 2-person Squad at Station #1

A cross-staffed ladder truck at Station #4

Three Battalion Chiefs (currently all three are interim acting BCs)

One Fire Chief (currently an interim acting Fire Chief)

One Administrative Assistant

.5 Disaster Coordinator

One Fire Prevention officer (now vacant)

Emergency Medical Dispatching.

Finding #5: The current Administrative Captain coverage in lieu of Battalion

Chiefs needs to be evaluated to ensure the Administrative Captains

are trained to the Battalion Chief “duty chief” level. Further, the

following question needs to be addressed: how long can this model

be continued if the compensation and/or skill set is significantly

lower than that of Battalion Chief?

Finding #6: The City appears to be assigning Fire Marshal and Training

responsibilities as “extra duties” to 2 fire crew Captains, but this is

inadequate for a City the size of Hemet.


2.8 ANALYSIS AND COMMENT

The other City Fire Department proposals from last January also include other variations to use

less or more headquarters staff to show a range of costs and service-level decisions. Then the

Hemet Fire Department proposal lists, at length, the other programs that Hemet Fire provides in

disaster preparedness, weed abatement, fire prevention, public education, and community

partnerships. All of these are rolled into the lump sum costs and none have specific service

measures, so it is impossible to quantify the value, quantity, or quality of many of the other

services statements.

The City Fire proposal accurately portrays the status of the City’s fire stations and fire apparatus.

It also accurately states that continuing with the City Fire Department will not incur County

conversion costs.

Citygate observes that many suburban fire departments, especially those seriously reduced by the

recession, are dealing with:

Keeping up with changes and all of the regulatory required tasks

Retaining and growing internally qualified chief officers, especially with skills in

personnel and fiscal issues

Having management staff trained in very complicated programs such as

paramedics

Providing fire prevention services using sworn personnel that are rotated in and

out of the position, thus not gaining the technical skills needed to completely use

the fire code.

For these and the other reasons stated in this report, it is very likely that if the City chooses to

even maintain the current Hemet Fire deployment levels, doing so will require more investment

in fire services, starting with headquarters staff and paramedics. If so, and if Hemet can afford

more fire services, is there a crossover point where the County becomes a better option at the

same or less cost? The cost model in Section 4 of this report will identify where the crossover

point is.

Section 3—Review of County-Provided Fire Services Issues page 32

SECTION 3—REVIEW OF COUNTY-PROVIDED FIRE SERVICES ISSUES

The City has received and reviewed the lengthy County Fire Service proposal. Citygate reviewed

the proposal and found it typical of what we see from a County (CAL FIRE or other) full-service

proposal to a city or fire district. For cost comparison purposes, our cost model uses the County

Option #1 that includes a staffed ladder truck. The reasons for this are several:

In Citygate’s opinion, Hemet needs ladder truck services.

Hemet Fire Department staff, in prior years, and in their 2013 proposals, believe a

ladder truck is necessary in Hemet.

The nearest County ladder truck southwest of Hemet is too far for primary (1st

Alarm) response time use.

County Fire Department staff advised Citygate that they believe Hemet needs

adequate ladder truck service as do the other County fire service areas north and

east of Hemet that do not have a ladder truck. As such, County Option #1 cost-

shares the ladder truck 50 percent to the City and 50 percent to the County.

The County does provide an option that has no ladder truck, and retains a two-

person squad. But, importantly, the County will not cross-staff a ladder truck with

an engine crew as Hemet fire currently does and as Citygate will include in two

Hemet Fire cost models.

These needs and limitations on the County proposal mean that, unless Hemet can afford and

chooses County Option #1, the only way for Hemet to continue ladder truck use is to stay

independent and cross-staff the unit for part-time availability.

Finding #7: The location of the current County truck company is too far from

Hemet to provide initial needed ladder truck coverage.

Finding #8: The County proposal that includes a truck company that would be

located in Hemet is cost-effective because it serves both Hemet

and fills a gap that the County has in timely truck coverage to its

own service areas north and east of Hemet. Thus, the County’s

proposal only charges Hemet half the cost of a 4-firefighter-staffed

ladder truck that will be stationed in Hemet.

3.1 SERVICES PROVIDED IN COUNTY PROPOSAL

The County’s overall proposal met Hemet’s RFP requirements for full services with detailed

costs. It includes:


Four fire stations, each staffed with a crew of three personnel per day, one of

whom is a paramedic

The continued lease of Station #5 to AMR for an ambulance location

A 4-person-staffed ladder truck Station #1

Three Battalion Chiefs, one per day

One Administrative Battalion Chief dedicated to City support

A Fire Chief, Division, and Deputy Chief to provide oversight and City staff

coordination

Disaster Coordinator via Riverside County Office of Emergency Services

One Assistant Fire Marshal, dedicated to Hemet

Emergency Medical Dispatching

Regional hazardous materials and technical rescue teams

Complete headquarters services with dedicated personnel for:

Training

Emergency Medical Services / paramedic oversight

Logistics and supplies

Apparatus ownership, repair and replacement

Facility maintenance

Dispatch and technology integration.

The County proposal and included programs can provide and continue the City Fire Department

current programs in fire inspection, community education and preparedness partnerships, and co-

location of AMR ambulances. Citygate did not identify a current City Fire Department program

that the County could also not deliver.

Several of the County’s fire stations overlap into Hemet at a 4-minute travel time measure. This

was shown on the exhibit maps provided as part of the County proposal. While today, either

department can request the other to assist, they rarely do if their own units are immediately

available. This is for two reasons: first, there is a longer dispatch time as either agency first

checks to see if the other agency is available and is closer to the emergency; and second, the two

agencies do not have common training/equipment standards. While fire departments work well

enough together on large mutual aid events, a common training, dispatch, command chief and


fire crew skill-set makes day-to-day operations faster, smoother, and safer when done by one

agency.

3.2 COUNTY PROPOSAL BENEFITS AND CONSTRAINTS

The Riverside County Fire Department proposal offers benefits typical of any large fire service

contract provider in the State when compared to smaller, suburban stand-alone fire departments:

Predictability of service levels and quality

A city sets it terms of staffing and response time performance via contract clauses

and penalties

Stability: a city does not have recruitment and retention challenges

Training staff depth and educational program resources

Back-up equipment and staff

Cities do not have the time and cost expense for workers compensation, general

liability, payroll, personnel, legal and labor negotiations

Credentialed command staff

Relieves cities of the responsibility of meeting Cal/OSHA safety requirements.

However, these positives have to be contrasted against possible losses to:

Loss of local control over all labor costs and some types of services (such as

cross-staffed ladder trucks)

An inflexible regional service-to-cost model if one or more cities wants severe

cost and service reductions in another recession

Turnover in chief officers experienced in Hemet’s affairs.

3.3 COUNTY PROPOSAL ITEMS THAT NEED CLARIFICATION

In regard to the specific Riverside County Fire Department proposal to Hemet, there are some

items that need clarification and/or negotiation, and one or more could become serious

impediments to reaching an acceptable contract:

1. When major emergencies strike elsewhere in the County or beyond, how many

units will the County maintain in Hemet, which has a high call-for-service rate?

The County proposal states that Hemet will be a Priority Cover area during

regional emergencies. This needs to be clarified, as there are no specific minimum


unit counts or backfill response times in the County proposal. Currently for

mutual aid, Hemet will send out one unit, leaving three engines and the squad,

while it tries to callback a crew on overtime to staff a reserve apparatus. A

regional deployment plan cuts both ways, in that if the region needs help, Hemet

could decide to drop to three or fewer units for a period of time. However, if in

turn, Hemet needed multiple units quickly, the County will respond in force. This

two-way street is similar to mutual aid, except that under a contract, one dispatch

center and chief officer, not two, coordinates movements. But in a mutual aid

request for more than one unit, today an independent Hemet Fire Department

could say “no” because it felt that the level of emergency calls at the time

required all Hemet fire engines to be on duty in the City. This is why the County

needs to be specific in describing what it means when it says Hemet will be a

Priority Cover area. What level of service will this be?

2. There are impacts to Hemet employees if some are not accepted for transfer to the

County Fire Department. This is especially true for everyone in the firefighter

rank, not being worked and paid as a paramedic. Riverside County does not

employ non-paramedic firefighters, and even the statewide system might not be

able to absorb so many non-paramedic firefighters from Hemet. Even if the

statewide system could, the Hemet employee would be faced with a move to

another part of the State if the employee did not want to be laid off. This issue

was not made clear to City staff until Citygate followed up on the County

proposal.

Unless Hemet begins a paramedic program prior to contracting with the County,

all Hemet firefighters (15 currently) face either layoff or possible relocation to

another CAL FIRE Unit outside of Riverside County.

3. The actual rank for rank transfer of employees requires a credential review and

final pay determination by CAL FIRE. The current County proposal assumes all

Hemet employees will be qualified to transfer to CAL FIRE at their present rank.


Finding #9: If the City contracts with the County for fire services, CAL FIRE

will only absorb firefighters with paramedic certification. After

hiring four firefighter-paramedics to fill existing vacancies this

fall, the number of firefighter-paramedics will be 13 of the 15

firefighter positions in the budget. Thus, a merger with the County,

if it occurred before more firefighters retired or resigned, would

result in 2 firefighters being laid off or transferred out of the

County due to the lack of paramedic certification. If the City does

not start its paramedic program before conversion, then all 15

firefighters will be subject to transfer or layoff.

Section 4—Cost of Fire Services Choices and Services page 37

SECTION 4—COST OF FIRE SERVICES CHOICES AND SERVICES

As Citygate discussed in Section 1.4 and 2.3 of this report, we believe the practice of using

“acting” chief officers to provide headquarters management services in the Hemet Fire

Department is unsustainable and not in Hemet’s best interests. Citygate identified in Section 2.3

the recommendation that ideally Hemet should have the following fire headquarters staffing:

1 Fire Chief

3 Battalion Chiefs to provide 24/7/365 incident command and station

supervision/training

1 Training Officer

1 Fire Marshal or fire inspector (which can be a non-safety position)

1 Emergency Medical Services oversight position (this can be a part-time contract

position)

1 Administrative Assistant office support position

1 Fire Prevention Clerk for fire prevention needs and back-up when the other

position is on earned leave.

We also stated in the Executive Summary of this report that the level of fire services is a local

choice that has to match desired services to revenues available. Based on the various Hemet Fire

Department staffing proposals and taking in account the cost variables of implementing

paramedics and Emergency Medical Dispatch, Citygate developed a cost model using our and

City staff’s most up-to-date data. The cost model shows four Hemet Fire Department service

levels starting with the service level as it is today and increasing to Citygate’s recommended “as

should be” level of service.

We then compared these four City levels of service and costs to County Option #1 that includes

the staffed ladder truck. This County option is the most comparable to the City’s “as should be”

service level and cost.

The County cannot provide a lesser service level, such as using acting chief officers or cross-

staffing a ladder truck, because these are not consistent with CAL FIRE and Riverside County

Fire Department best practices that limit the liability exposure to the fire agency. As a result,

there is no lesser cost County alternative that provides a direct cost comparison to the City

alternatives. If the City can only afford a cost and service level less than that proposed by the

County in its Option #1, then continuing a City-operated fire department is the only affordable

option available to the City that provides at least minimal ladder truck availability.

The tables in this section will then compare the cost of the various alternatives available to the

City, as compared to the County proposed Option #1.


4.1 HOW THE COSTS IN THE TABLES WERE DEVELOPED

City costs began with using the FY 2013-14 budget, less the $900,000 estimate added by the City

in that budget for the possibility of starting a paramedic and EMD program. This is the cost of

providing the current Hemet Fire Department service level. For progressively higher levels of

service, Citygate added the annual cost developed by Citygate of operating a paramedic program,

including a one-time $525,000 start-up cost of purchasing equipment in the first year. For

alternatives that also add an enhanced headquarters staffing level, we added the cost of that staff

as developed with Hemet City Hall staff using current pay and benefit levels. Finally in the City

alternative that includes adding a dedicated ladder truck crew, Citygate used Hemet pay and

benefit levels.

County Option #1 costs began with the cost provided by the County in its latest proposal, which

is also reflective of FY 2013-14 CAL FIRE expected costs. To the County proposal we added a

number of costs, which have to remain with the City. This was done in order to make the County

proposal represent the “true” complete annual cost of fire service to the City’s General Fund if

there is a contract with the County.

For example, all of the non-sworn positions are proposed to remain on the City payroll. The City

will continue to pay for the utilities and major maintenance on fire stations and accrued annual

retiree medical costs for prior City retirees and current employees who qualified for that benefit.

In addition, there are general overhead expenses and allocated City internal service costs, such as

a portion of the general liability insurance and citywide legal expenses, that the City allocated to

the Fire Department budget and which will not be reduced even if the City contracts with the

County for fire services. Citygate carefully reviewed these “have to be kept” expenses with the

City to ensure that it was appropriate to add them onto the County base proposal cost in order to

bring the County proposal up to a “true” cost comparison to the City alternatives.

County Option #1 also included a one-time start-up cost of $262,595, which occurs only in the

first year of a contract. Citygate also acknowledged that under CalPERS retirement system

actuarial practices, even though sworn firefighters would be transferred to CAL FIRE

employment, the City will retain responsibility for approximately $663,000 in unfunded

firefighter retirement liability for these personnel that has already been accrued but not yet fully

paid. This is a cost that will be added to the City’s CalPERS expense beginning in the third year.

The City, of course, will have experienced no fire-employee-related CalPERS expenses in the

first two years and so the City may consider setting aside this $663,000 annual savings in those

first two years in order to “buy down” a portion of the long-term unfunded liability and slightly

reduce the annual $663,000 cost that the City will incur beginning in the third year.

It is important to recognize in using Citygate’s cost comparison tables that the County proposal

represents the maximum cost the City can expect. Each fiscal year County Fire bills only their

actual costs, which in Citygate’s experience will be most likely 2-5 percent less or roughly a


$200,000 to $400,000 savings over the County costs in the table below. These savings occur

because the County contract proposal assumes that all personnel assigned to the fire stations are

at the top pay step and that maximum overtime costs are incurred for earned leave absences. This

is rarely the case, as staff turnover results in some personnel being assigned to the Hemet stations

who are at a pay scale below the top step. A review of City staffing and costs demonstrates that

at the Hemet stations not all personnel are at the top step and this fact is already reflected in the

City’s FY 2013-14 budgeted costs. Thus, comparatively, the County cost proposal is somewhat

overstated when compared to the City’s, but the exact amount cannot be determined because the

real cost will only be reflected with actual costs that are known at the end of the contract year.

4.2 COST COMPARISON TABLES WITH EXPLANATION

The far left-hand columns list four levels of service if the City retains the Hemet Fire Department

and compares each of these service/cost levels to the County Option #1 which is the last row in

the table.

The four service level choices that Citygate recommends as the best service-to-cost-range

choices are:

A. Current operation. Includes 4 engines, 1 squad, 1 cross-staffed ladder

truck, and 4 acting chief officers. Does not include paramedics or

Emergency Medical Dispatch.

B. Option A plus the City fire paramedic program.

C. Option A+B plus the addition of headquarters personnel for a training

chief, fire marshal, and second office assistant.

D. Option A+B+C plus the addition of permanent chief officers (4) and a

return to a dedicated 3-person ladder truck crew, to replace the 2-person

squad.

The remaining columns in the table first list the cost, without inflation adjustments, that can be

expected based on the City and County proposals in each of the first three years. The column to

most appropriately use in comparing costs is the third-year column (second to last column). The

first- and second-year cost columns include one-time costs discussed above. In Year 3 the one-

time costs are completed, but the payment of the CalPERS unfunded retirement liability begins,

so the third-year column represents the most accurate long-term cost to the City under the

various alternatives. Of course, even in Year 3 the probable cost reduction in the County contract

for the true up at year-end for actual versus budgeted costs cannot be calculated, so the table cost

is the budgeted or worst-case contract “cap” cost the City should expect.


The next two tables assume that the City decides not to implement EMD, as Citygate has

recommended.

The first table provides the three-year cost comparison of City service level D to County Option

#1. This represents the closest comparison of service levels that are nearly the same.

Table 4—Comparison of City Service Level D to County Option #1 without EMD Costs

Service Level

Alternatives

Service Level

Description

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

1st Year

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

2nd Year

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

3rd Year

Enhanced

Services – 3rd

Year (Savings) or

Expense versus a

County Contract

City Service Level

City Service

Level “D”

Comparable to

the County

Option #1

City w/staffed

Ladder Truck

+ Medics +

HQ staff

$12,257,908 $11,718,257 $11,726,657 $306,283


County Option

#1

County

w/staffed

Ladder Truck

@ 50% cost to

City

$11,422,146 $10,757,374 $11,420,374

Annual Savings to the City: $835,762 $960,883 $306,283

The second table compares all four City service level alternatives that Citygate recommends as

the best service-to-cost-range choices:


Table 5—Comparison of Service Level and Cost Alternatives without EMD Costs

Service Level

Alternatives

Service Level

Description

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 1st Year

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 2nd Year

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 3rd Year

Enhanced

Services – 3rd

Year (Savings)

or Expense

versus a County

Contract

City Service Levels

A

Current City

Service Level

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck,

no Medics, NO

extra HQ

$10,487,600 $10,487,600 $10,487,600 $(932,774)

B

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck +

Medics, NO extra

HQ

$11,300,318 $10,760,667 $10,769,067 $(651,307)

C

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck +

Medics + HQ staff

$11,724,344 $11,184,693 $11,193,093 $(227,281)

D

City Service Level

Comparable to the

County Option #1

City w/staffed

Ladder Truck +

Medics + HQ staff

$12,257,908 $11,718,257 $11,726,657 $306,283


County Option #1

County w/staffed

Ladder Truck @

50% cost to City

$11,422,146 $10,757,374 $11,420,374

The next set of tables differ from the two above only in adding in the estimated annual cost of

implementing Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) to the City’s dispatch center beginning in

the second year. While Citygate believes the City can begin a full paramedic program in the first

year, the lead-time for acquiring equipment, recruiting and training dispatchers make a second

year implementation more realistic.


Table 6—Comparison of City Service Level D to County Option #1 WITH EMD Costs

Service Level

Alternatives

Service Level

Description

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

1st Year

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

2nd Year

Adjusted

Annual

Operate Cost

3rd Year

Enhanced

Services – 3rd

Year (Savings) or

Expense versus a

County Contract

City Service Level

City Service

Level “D”

Comparable to

the County

Option #1

City w/staffed

Ladder Truck

+ Medics +

HQ staff

$12,257,908 $12,457,332 $12,465,732 $1,045,358


County Option

#1

County

w/staffed

Ladder Truck

@ 50% cost to

City

$11,422,146 $10,757,374 $11,420,374

Annual Savings to the City: $835,762 $1,699,958 $1,045,358


Table 7—Comparison of Service Level and Cost Alternatives WITH EMD Costs

Service Level

Alternatives

Service Level

Description

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 1st Year

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 2nd Year

Adjusted

Annual Operate

Cost 3rd Year

Enhanced

Services – 3rd

Year (Savings)

or Expense

versus a County

Contract

City Service Levels

A

Current City

Service Level

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck,

no Medics, NO

extra HQ

$10,487,600 $10,487,600 $10,487,600 $(932,774)

B

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck +

Medics, NO extra

HQ

$11,300,318 $11,499,742 $11,508,142 $87,768

C

City w/Squad &

cross staff Truck +

Medics + HQ staff

$11,724,344 $11,923,768 $11,932,168 $511,794

D

City Service Level

Comparable to the

County Option #1

City w/staffed

Ladder Truck +

Medics + HQ staff

$12,257,908 $12,457,332 $12,465,732 $1,045,358


County Option #1

County w/staffed

Ladder Truck @

50% cost to City

$11,422,146 $10,757,374 $11,420,374

4.3 COUNTY PROPOSAL ISSUES TO BE RESOLVED

The County proposal indicates a number of issues that would need to be resolved as part of a

final contract. Some of these can affect the short- and long-term costs of a County contract,

although at this stage none of the issues appear in the long-term to significantly narrow the

cost/savings difference between the City and County Option #1 alternatives. Citygate cautions,

however, that if the City finds the County proposal worth pursuing, that prior to making a final

decision at a future public meeting, the following issues will need to be resolved to the

satisfaction of the City:

Start-up the City firefighter paramedic program


Identify and accept the level of “Priority Cover” for Hemet fire stations by the

County Fire Department

Identify the impact on Hemet fire personnel who do not have paramedic

certification and are not active paramedic-level firefighters

Submit for transfer verification by CAL FIRE all City fire employee records to

determine who can be transferred, at what rank and pay

Resolve City firefighter return rights to the City, if the contract is stopped

Resolve disposition of earned leave credit

Resolve City employee continuity of medical coverage during the transition

Resolve post-retirement retiree medical costs

Understand the retirement formula applicable to City employees who transfer to

CAL FIRE

Identify retirement reciprocity

Identify the number and cost of City employees on disability (City expense) on

the effective date of a contract

Finalize ownership and maintenance of front-line and reserve apparatus and

equipment.

As discussed in other sections of this report, cost is only one factor to consider in determining

whether to contract for fire service with the County. Nevertheless, cost is critical, because if the

City cannot or chooses not to spend more on fire services comparable to the level of services

proposed by the County, all other issues are rendered moot.

4.4 COST ANALYSIS FINDINGS

Finding #10: There are significant unknowns that can cause one-time County

Fire conversion costs to swing substantially, including liability for

employees injured prior to conversion, the vacation leave buyout,

and start-up costs.


Finding #11: Citygate cautions the City that level of service choices A through

C anticipate the continued use of acting chief officers, until,

through retirements and/or training and certification, the acting

chief officer positions can be transitioned into permanent chief

officer positions. If the City seeks to convert the acting positions

immediately to permanent appointments, the City is likely to have

one or more of the current acting chief officers return to the rank of

captain, resulting in there being more captains than the current

budget provides for. The continued use of acting chief officers is

unsustainable.

Finding #12: Given current levels of staffing and funding, it would be surprising

if the Hemet Fire Department is able to keep up with mandates for

training provision, training verification, fire code inspections, fire

code permits, permit fees, and second-tier priorities like public

education and disaster preparedness. Based on this, and the

unsustainable use of acting chief officers, it is very likely that if the

City chooses to even maintain the current Hemet Fire Department

crew deployment levels, doing so will require more investment in

fire services, starting with headquarters staff and paramedics.

Finding #13: The most comparable service configuration between the City and

County proposal is for the City to convert the 2-person squad back

to a 3-person truck company and add paramedics, a Fire Marshal, a

fire prevention clerk, a 40-hour Training Officer and permanent

chief officers. This compares most directly to the County proposal

that provides a shared 4-person truck company and adequate fire

headquarters services in Hemet.

Finding #14: If the City contracts with the County, it will be most cost-effective

for all City fire apparatus and specialty tools to be given to the

County. The County will then be responsible for maintenance and

replacement. The County prefers that all front-line fire apparatus

be in County ownership, due to the liability of County fire

personnel driving the equipment.

Section 5—Advantages and Disadvantages of a County Fire Contract page 46

SECTION 5—ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF A COUNTY FIRE

CONTRACT

As this report has identified in several sections, a suburban fire department, unless located in a

high-revenue city, frequently struggles to recruit and retain enough qualified headquarters staff,

or provide enough supplies and updated firefighting apparatus and equipment.

Larger and regional contract-for-service fire departments can spread overhead costs across many

firefighters and thus have quality dedicated staffed headquarters support programs. They can

train future command staff leaders more easily because they can rotate candidates through

different bureau assignments to round out a resume. They do not have to worry as much about an

injury leave or disability retirement crippling a critical command staff position.

But the larger and regional contract-for-service fire departments are inflexible when it comes to

costs. They use the common tools to set labor costs, but once done, they have to be passed onto

the contracting cities and counties. However, Citygate takes note that after this recession,

government employers of all sizes are re-setting their pension, medical, and salary costs to the

new economic reality. This should moderate contract cost increases, at least in the near term.

There are other benefits to smaller cities like Hemet in the areas of not having the time and cost

expenses for workers compensation, general liability, payroll, personnel, legal, and labor

negotiations. The City Hall overhead is a real issue for fire and police services. Even if a fire

contract did not mean Hemet could reduce, over a period of time, its already smaller City Hall

staffing, the staff would gain more time for other under-met Hemet needs.

If Hemet can afford the level of fire services that includes a full headquarters team as identified

in the Citygate cost model, along with a staffed ladder truck, then even if there were zero direct

fire cost savings, Citygate would recommend Hemet carefully consider all of the obligations of

running a fire department internally versus contracting with the County and simplifying its

internal operations.

The County also can easily do all of the “non emergency response” programs such as the disaster

preparedness partnerships identified in the City Fire Department proposal, as the County

proposal states.

Documents

Hemet Fire Services Final Report