By Matthias Gafni
The Contra Costa Times
MARTINEZ, Calif. — A downtown Walnut Creek fire station will have half its firefighters removed Jan. 1 to save the county $800,000 this fiscal year as the Contra Costa fire district struggles to operate with dwindling resources.
The cutbacks at Station 1, one of the few county facilities manned by two fire companies, would provide less impact to fire service than other proposed station closures, an assistant fire chief told supervisors Tuesday. The board voted to remove one fire company — consisting of three firefighters and costing the county $1.58 million annually — from the Civic Drive station.
“We are facing unprecedented fiscal challenges in the fire district,” said Rich Grace, Contra Costa fire district assistant chief. “This will not affect the county as adversely as closing or browning out a station entirely. "... Closing a station is a last resort for us.”
A fire department study of Station 1 found that the reduction in force would have almost no effect on most call-for-service response times.
The Contra Costa Fire Protection District will deplete its fiscal reserves by next fiscal year. The department already burned through $8.7 million in reserves this year to help close a $12 million budget gap. Salaries and benefits account for more than 85 percent of the department’s budget, so Chief Daryl Louder has said cuts must come from personnel.
Since 2007, district revenue has dropped by 11.7 percent, as property tax dollars — which makes up 88 percent of the department revenue — tumbled.
As many as eight fire stations throughout Contra Costa could close, Louder has said, if voters do not approve a proposed parcel tax next year.
Early phone survey results from a county parcel tax poll are due back in the coming weeks.
The board would have to approve placing the tax measure on the June or later ballot.
The Contra Costa fire union president and a fire captain told supervisors Tuesday that they are willing to work with the county to achieve cost savings, but decried critics who blame the financial mess on firefighter pensions, calling it “misleading.”
A Pleasant Hill resident said a parcel tax should not be considered until the district makes wholesale changes in firefighters’ contracts, saying taxpayers “are not a bottomless piggy bank.”
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