By Eric Bradley
The Press - Telegram
LONG BEACH, Calif. — As the debate over budget cuts to Long Beach’s Fire Department heats up, the ire of union leaders is centering on a proposal to shrink nine of the city’s fire engine crews from four to three.
The move is a key component in about $5 million in departmental reductions city leaders announced Tuesday to help close a $20.3 million general fund budget deficit. The City Council has until Sept. 15 to pass a budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins Oct. 1.
Among other budget-slashing measures is a plan to replace the fire engine at Station 18 in East Long Beach with a paramedic unit. Fire officials say about 80 percent of the station’s calls are for medical issues.
The city is also proposing to mothball one of the city’s fire trucks and eliminate 27 vacant firefighter positions.
One change supported by the firefighters union is a plan tothe “rolling brownouts” instituted last year that take engines out of service on a rotating basis.
The brownouts, which firefighters often compared to Russian roulette, were lifted in part because data collected last year found that the practice added as much as 1 minute and 23 seconds to response times in some areas of the city, fire officials said last week.
As a union leader and firefighter, Long Beach Firefighters Local 372 President Rich Brandt is opposed to anything that reduces services.
But he called the engine-staffing change, in particular, “unacceptable.”
“There’s not a metropolitan city like ours that runs with three-person staffing,” Brandt said.
The model is used in the Los Angeles and Orange county fire departments, and in other Southern California cities such as Redondo Beach. Opponents say the method flouts the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s “two-in, two-out” standard that mandates that fire personnel never respond to a dangerous incident alone.
At a meeting Thursday evening at El Dorado Community Center not far from Station 18, residents expressed alarm at the prospect of moving to a three-firefighter model.
“I’m concerned that public safety is being compromised,” said Mary Parsell.
Fire Chief Alan Patalano said he too would prefer to continue a four-person response.
But, Patalano said, “What I don’t have is the budget to support 15 four-person engine companies.”
Gerrie Schipske, the 5th District Councilwoman who hosted the meeting, said she is still processing the budget numbers, but added that it’s not helpful to compare Long Beach to other cities.
“We have a major port. Most of the acreage all of us live on have oil and gas lines underneath,” Schipske said. “We have an airport.
“It’s difficult when we start saying all these other cities do it. We’re not like other cities.”
City officials say any meaningful solution to Long Beach’s fiscal problems must involve changes to retirement plans.
On Friday, Brandt announced that the fire union was preparing a proposal that would include members paying the full 9percent employee pension pickup, an increase from the current 2 percent.
He also said members are open to other concessions, such as allowing reduced benefits for new hires and forgoing salary increases in the remaining years of the union’s present contract that expires at theof 2013 — but he stopped short of agreeing to outright salary cuts.
“We don’t want to go backwards,” Brandt said.
“What the City Council wants is for us to pay our fair share of the pensions, and we’ll deliver that. In return, we want fair staffing for citizens.”
Most city officials contacted last week declined to speak on the record, preferring to wait until the fire union delivers its next proposal.
But Schipske said that before the budget process is finished, there needs to be more education on the issues — and less inflammatory rhetoric.
“The fact that (the union is) coming to the table when their contract is closed speaks volumes,” Schipske said.
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