The Eureka Times Standard
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — When the state fire alarm sounds, firefighters across California suit up and head out the door, but the promise of IOUs instead of paychecks has some departments hesitating.
State legislators have yet to determine a budget, forcing some state departments to issue registered warrants, also known as IOUs, instead of checks. The state’s mutual aid program — involving most fire departments that help battle summer blazes — may suffer for it.
Jay Alan, spokesman for the California Emergency Management Agency, said that as a result there has been talk of local fire departments being unable to respond to a mutual aid emergency, like a bad fire, earthquake or a tsunami.
Alan said he doesn’t believe those agencies will back away just because the state is offering IOUs for payment.
“I think everyone still acknowledges the need and the value of it,” Alan said of mutual aid. “I think everyone realizes that someday they may need it.”
The governor’s Emergency Response Initiative would help by providing a stable source of funding for first responders that’s not at the mercy of changes in general fund money, Alan said.
While the Eureka Fire Department is not considering rolling back its agreement to assist Cal Fire with wildland fires at this time, that is a possibility for the future, said Eureka Fire Chief Eric Smith.
The department has a fire engine on loan from the state, Smith said. When their assistance is requested, Eureka firefighters climb on board and head off to help — sometimes for as long as a month, the chief said. In return, the state reimburses the city for its personnel costs.
Last year, for example, the department sent the engine to Butte County where the crew spent 30 days. A crew also traveled to Santa Barbara this spring to help battle wildfires. The department has yet to be reimbursed for that effort, although the chief said it’s not unusual for such payment to take six months. Reimbursement for mutual aid help usually takes from 90 to 120 days.
The concern on the part of the Humboldt County Fire Chiefs Association and the department is that with the particularly tight financial situation, no one can afford to put that money out and wait for increasingly delayed reimbursement. To their credit, Smith said, CalEMA is trying to speed up the reimbursement process. However, he said, many jurisdictions are simply choosing not to participate in the mutual aid agreements.
Free favors not a realistic option
One proposal in the mix is to simply eliminate the reimbursement in favor of a “gratis” program in which one department’s labors will be returned in kind in the future. In an ideal world — certainly a more financially solvent one — that might work. But, that’s not the situation for most public agencies.
“My city cannot afford to gratis $150,000 to other agencies in the state,” Smith said. “We can’t afford to do business that way.”
Still, the Eureka Fire Department, the fire chief said, will attempt to participate to the degree that it can.
“At this point, it’s something we’re monitoring,” he said.
While the department will still respond to the state’s request for assistance, if it looks like the crew will be gone for an extended period of time and that the department won’t be able to recoup the expense within the fiscal year, they may opt to bring the crew home.
“We’re going to help as much as we can, but there is a bottom line,” Smith said. “My number one responsibility is to my city.”
In Arcata, some revenue loss was expected this year.
Arcata Fire District Protection Chief John McFarland said the district was able to plan ahead for the loss and the district will continue to assist Cal Fire while they can.
“It’s going to be an active review,” he said.
Last year the district had $200,000 in reimbursements for assisting Cal Fire. McFarland said the district is more concerned about the state’s property tax grabs, which may mean the loss of an estimated $140,000 in department revenue. He said the district is actually in a much better position than some fire organizations because of its configuration.
“A special district is more of a family-style organization,” he said. “We don’t have to share a piece of pie with other department heads -- it’s all our pie and we can make things work.”
The district has budgeted for a possible loss this year, utilizing the flexibility of their staff and volunteer staff configuration, as well as wage negotiations, McFarland said.
Waiting on a budget
As of July 10, many banks stopped accepting the state’s IOUs, decreasing the motivation for fire departments to accept them, said Kim Zagaris, fire chief for the state Emergency Management Agency. Right now, his department is waiting for legislators to make a decision on the budget.
“We’ve never seen them go longer than three months so I guess that’s a good thing,” Zagaris said.
While fire departments are voicing concerns that they may not be able to help if the state can’t pay with real checks, Zagaris said he is unsure how many would actually decline to help. However, he said he understands their concerns.
“Some local governments can’t go very far, very long without that reimbursement,” he said. A fire department’s first priority is to take care of their own area, he said.
Possible future cuts further compound the issue. Depending on how the state budget turns out, Cal Fire may lose hundreds of fire engines and need even more assistance from local agencies.
“Two hundred engines could make a big difference,” he said. “I don’t like gambling with public safety.”
Currently, Cal Fire is relying heavily on contractors and vendors during large wildfires, said Cal Fire spokeswoman Janet Upton. Often, something of a small city is set up to manage such an event, and this summer the contractors and vendors who do that would be paid with IOUs.
Upton said there hasn’t been a large incident to test whether those contractors or vendors will respond if they can’t count on being paid outright.
“We haven’t felt the impacts in that regard, yet,” Upton said.
Should those companies choose not to work, Cal Fire command centers call on the National Guard or other armed forces, Upton said.
Times-Standard staff writers John Driscoll, Jessie Faulkner, Donna Tam and Allison White contributed to this report.
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