The Seal Beach Fire Services Advisory Ad Hoc Committee will advise the City Council on its options for emergency services at the group’s 5 p.m., Monday, May 21 meeting. The meeting will be held in the Council Chambers. Next Monday will be the group’s last chance to meet and make a recommendation to the City Council before the council decides whether to stay with the Orange County Fire Authority, hire another agency or revive its own fire department.
At the May 21 meeting, each committee member will get 10 minutes to present their own proposals to the group. Staff is expected to provide a table comparing the cost estimates of the Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Orange County fire agencies. Members of the committee were expecting the May 21 meeting to be a long one when the group last met on May 3. One member speculated it could last until midnight.
Seal Beach, and other Orange County cities, have until the end of June to chose whether they will continue to receive fire and paramedic services from the Orange County Fire Authority or find an alternative.
One of those cities is Irvine, which according to the Orange County Grand Jury provides 15 percent of the Fire Authority’s revenue. As of Tuesday, May 15, Craig Reem, Irvine’s director of Public Affairs, said the Irvine council had discussed the issue in closed session, “but has not reported out any information at this time.” Still another consideration: according to District One Councilwoman Ellery Deaton’s comments at an early April coffee chat, if Seal Beach withdraws from OCFA, there will be a two-year period when Seal Beach has no representation on the Fire Authority board and no contract for emergency services.
Long Beach and Huntington Beach fire agencies have provided the committee with cost estimates based on both three-person fire engines and four-person fire engines. The OCFA staffs Seal Beach’s two fire stations with four-person engines.
As seen in the tables on this page, Huntington Beach Fire Department service costs would could be more than $6.2 or $7.7 million a year, not including one-time start-up costs, depending on whether Seal Beach chooses three-person or four-person units.
Long Beach’s figures are more than $5.6 or $7.1 million, again not including start-up costs, depending on the type of fire engine Seal Beach selects.
The Fire Authority, by contract, bills Seal Beach almost $5.2 million a year, but at a loss in excess of $1.9 million. The OCFA contract cost can increase up to a cap of 4.5 percent a year. At her April coffee chat, Deaton, speaking from memory, said Seal Beach’s bill increased about half a million dollars a year.
To put that in the larger context of the city’s overall budget, Seal Beach staff last year projected a $5,000 surplus based on the assumtion that beach parking fees would increase. But the California Coastal Commission has not yet approved the permit to increase the beach parking fees. Deaton recently acknowledged that sales tax revenues had decreased.
District One Committee member Joe Kalmick, a former volunteer fire fighter, recently described the Huntington Beach and Long Beach cost projections as “back of the envelope” estimates. (The OCFA elminated volunteer firefighters years ago.)
At the May 3 meeting, the Fire Committee members appeared to agree that fire service costs will increase no matter what emergency service options the city chooses. The bulk of fire service costs are labor costs—providing staff for three shifts at two fire stations, workman’s compensation, health and pension benefits.
