The Orange County Register
IRVINE, Calif. — The Orange County Fire Authority board decided to slash the volunteer program in half, cutting 245 reserve positions. The decision came at the end of a four-hour meeting Thursday night of the 24-member board of directors.
Board members seemed to be caught off guard when Todd Litfin, city attorney for Villa Park, told them they may be in breach of their contract with the city if they cut the program. The suggestion prompted the board to go into an impromptu closed session. Minutes later, board members voted 15-6 to cut the volunteer program by half. They decided to slash the worst-performing reserve stations at Los Alamitos, Sunset Beach, Yorba Linda, La Palma, Lake Forest, Tustin, Villa Park, Mission Viejo, Midway City, Coto de Caza and Seal Beach.
Director Brad Reese of Villa Park asked that board members give the system additional time to improve. “I’m really offended you guys always look for the bad in the program,” he said.
Other board members, however, aired concerns about the Fire Authority’s budget problems, including an expected $14 million shortfall in the coming year. The decision is expected to save the agency more than $600,000 a year, and some board members aired a willingness to cut the remainder of the program in 2011.
According to a six-month review by the Fire Authority, the stations facing cuts were able to respond to only a fraction of the calls to which they were summoned. For example, the 13-member reserve squad at Station 25 in Midway City responded to just over 50 percent of the calls. Sunset Beach, La Palma, Lake Forest and Tustin responded to less than a quarter of all calls.
Fire officials pointed to such numbers in the study.
“We’re not in the fun business,” said Joe Kerr, president of the Orange County Professional Firefighters union. Kerr said that although some stations had exemplary figures, others treated the reserve program as a social club.
But several supporters of the reserves said the program was set up to fail years ago, adding that friction has existed for years between professional firefighters, who are unionized, and the volunteers, who are paid $8 for each call.
“The biggest social club in Orange County is the union firemen,” said Steve Palmer, who volunteered for 12 years.
Some officials were concerned that the supplemental manpower provided by reserves during large wildfires would be lost. But fire officials said reserves often ask to leave their posts in the middle of large wildfires, forcing officials to search out resources to fill those spots, said Division Chief Mike Boyle.
“It happened in the Freeway fire,” Boyle said, referring to the 2008 wildfire.
Orange County Supervisor Pat Bates, who serves on the board, said she was concerned that the board wasn’t waiting until a six-month evaluation was completed in December, as done in the past. She noted that officials had difficult labor negotiations with the union.
“Somehow, it was accelerated,” she said. “I would be very disappointed if it was accelerated due to our difficult salary discussions in June.”
Union officials are discussing forgoing $10 million in raises in the next two years, but Kerr said firefighters could not be expected to do so if the costs of the reserve program were maintained.
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