By Joshua Melvin
The San Mateo County Times via The Contra Costa Times
MILLBRAE, Calif. — Elected officials from four Peninsula cities will decide in the new year whether a plan to combine their fire departments and potentially save millions of dollars per year moves forward or turns to ashes.
City and town councils from Hillsborough, Burlingame, San Bruno and Millbrae have to decide if they want to hire Citygate Associates LLC, a Folsom-based firm that specializes in fire and emergency medical service consulting, to do an evaluation of whether it’s possible or advisable for the cities to merge their fire departments. Votes on the proposal, which was presented at a meeting this week to representatives from all the cities, are expected to come in January.
Hillsborough and Burlingame fire departments already merged in April 2004, when they created the Central County Fire Department. At issue is a plan to add San Bruno and Millbrae.
Officials said those two cities have always been eyed for inclusion, but the savings initially weren’t big enough to lure them. But nearly six years later and at the bottom of a deep recession the idea is becoming attractive. Budget cuts are forcing officials to choose between laying off firefighters or looking at consolidating.
But the process is a complicated one and might not even work. While mergers between other fire departments on the Peninsula have largely been successful, Belmont and San Carlos have debated for years how the cost of their shared agency should be divvied up.
“The devil is in the details,” Millbrae Mayor Paul Seto said.
Spend less and share
A consultant report from the summer said the four cities could feasibly merge fire departments and would save up to $2 million a year collectively. The merged department would spend less money by having one chief and fewer command staff as well as share the cost of equipment purchases and maintenance, Central County fire Chief Don Dornell said.
No employees would be laid off. But the report didn’t go into the gory details of what to do about differences between firefighters’ pay, benefits, retirement plans, work schedules and department cultures.
“What are the inconsistencies?” Burlingame City Manager Jim Nantell asked. “How much of an issue will they become?”
Officials hope the proposed work of the consultants, which would cost a maximum of $58,000 and take about six months to complete, will fill in some of those blanks. But nothing will happen until the Citygate contract gets before the four city and town councils involved.
Several elected officials said they don’t see getting approval for the money to be a major hurdle, especially given the possible savings.
“I don’t think Millbrae will have any problem passing it,” Councilwoman Gina Papan said.
Questions remain
If the plan moves to next level, there are some questions that will need answers. San Bruno and Millbrae fire Chief Dennis Haag said he wants to know who would be responsible for overseeing the department. Would the agency report to a city council or a fire board created to oversee the department?
“I think we need this consultant to help sort this out,” Haag said.
How to actually combine departments, which have individual identities, histories and senses of pride, is also something that would have to be figured out. Central County Chief Dornell said when he became head of the department in 2006 he had to forbid the firefighters from wearing belt buckles or shirts bearing the name of what used to be their department. The items reinforced the memory of two separate agencies, which was bad for morale. Dornell eventually outlawed the items.
“People have organizational pride, but that organization doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “I want people to be proud of Central County Fire.”
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