Agenda Item No. 6
CITY COUNCIL STAFF REPORT
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council DATE: February 27, 2023 FROM: Matthew Bronson, City Manager
PREPARED BY: Matthew Bronson, City Manager
SUBJECT: Fire and Emergency Medical Services Review
RECOMMENDATION
Receive a presentation on a review conducted by Baker Tilly to assess current and future needs for fire and emergency medical services provided by the Five Cities Fire Authority in Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande and provide input to staff.
DISCUSSION
On December 5, 2022, the Council received an update from staff on the implementation of the “wind down” period related to the Oceano Community Services District (OCSD) withdrawal from the Five Cities Fire Authority (FCFA) along with a fire services review carried out in conjunction with the City of Arroyo Grande. This update followed a previous update to the Council on July 25, 2022 reporting the failure of Oceano Measure A-22 which would have assessed a parcel tax on Oceano properties to generate additional funding for fire and emergency medical services in Oceano. Failure of this measure triggered a 12-month wind down process defined in the Third Amendment to the Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement (shown in Attachment 1) culminating in the OCSD withdrawal of membership in the FCFA effective July 1, 2023. The tasks defined in this wind down process including distribution of assets and liabilities such as pension costs are underway and scheduled to be completed by the July 1, 2023 deadline.
OCSD has also submitted an application to the Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCo) to divest itself of its fire and emergency service powers effective June 30, 2023. Through the LAFCo process, OCSD is requesting that the County of San Luis Obispo (County) take over fire and emergency service responsibilities to Oceano, which will require an agreement between the OCSD and the County. Due to the short amount of time before OCSD is required to leave the FCFA, it is possible that FCFA may be approached to continue to provide services to Oceano during the completion of the LAFCo process. However, a Fourth Amendment to the Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement or a new agreement would be needed to either extend the current structure of the JPA or establish a new two-city structure that in turn could contract with OCSD to provide service to Oceano. Absent this new amendment or agreement, FCFA would be unable to supply fire services to Oceano after June 30, 2023.
In addition to this wind down process, there has been a separate process underway between the remaining FCFA member agencies (cities of Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande) at the staff level about the desired level of fire and emergency medical services and funding needs in the respective communities. These discussions are being led by the City Managers of the two cities and initially involved work sessions with FCFA staff and treasurer about current and projected FCFA call volume along with staffing and equipment needs. The FCFA budget has not changed since FY 2019-20 given the Third Amendment which locked in member contributions in June 2020 Staff Report: Fire and Emergency Medical Services Review Page 2 February 27, 2023
at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and was also predicated on Oceano’s future tax measure in 2022 which ultimately failed. The member contributions under the Third Amendment are $2,580,955 for Arroyo Grande, $2,015,115 for Grover Beach, and $1,138,148 for Oceano.
Though the City previously increased its funding to transition part-time reserve firefighters to fulltime positions, the FCFA budget has become constrained as both costs and service needs have increased. This is particularly challenging when multiple calls are received in the FCFA service area. Mutual aid from other agencies can assist when available but such resources cannot be relied upon to respond to all calls. In addition, firefighter workload has increased significantly which impacts not only service response but also employee health and retention. This fire services review is an important effort to ensure responsive and effective fire and emergency medical services in the future and determine the budgetary implication to this work to inform the Council’s development of FY 2023-25 Council Goals and resulting two-year budget.
Given the significance of this issue and potential costs involved, the Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach City Managers engaged an outside consultant (Baker Tilly) in October 2022 to conduct an analysis of fire services for the two cities and provide service and funding recommendations. The Baker Tilly team working on this project has extensive experience in fire services and was led by Rick Haydon, former City Manager in Santa Maria. Mr. Haydon is familiar with the local area and previously led a review of the City’s police services in 2018 and also led an organizational assessment of other City services that will be presented to the Council following this agenda item.
There were several other members of the Baker Tilly team including Larry Waterhouse, a former fire chief in several cities in Southern California. Baker Tilly was chosen given their work with service reviews elsewhere within the Central Coast and their ability to complete this study by early 2023 to inform decisions by the two cities.
Baker Tilly’s scope included a service level analysis, staffing deployment options, fiscal analysis, and review of alternative service models and governance structure. This work included reviewing the financial impacts of OCSD’s departure from FCFA including their current funding contribution and whether it would be beneficial for FCFA to provide fire service to Oceano under a contractual fee-for-service arrangement. Baker Tilly interviewed numerous individuals including former FCFA Board members, City Managers/OCSD General Manager, FCFA command staff, FCFA firefighters union representatives, and others. The consulting team also reviewed numerous documents including the Joint Powers Authority Agreement, FCFA strategic planning materials, budgets and CalPERS information, service call data, and other documents.
During this agenda item, Baker Tilly will present their observations, findings, and recommendations for sustainable and responsive fire and emergency medical services along with associated costs for both Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande. Baker Tilly will provide a similar presentation to the Arroyo Grande City Council on February 28. The recommendations are intended to be implemented beginning in FY 2023-24 to coincide with the withdrawal of Oceano Community Services District from the FCFA. Staff is seeking questions and comments from the Council to inform the next steps in this work effort along with the upcoming Council goal-setting discussion on March 6. Following the presentation, Baker Tilly will prepare a written report that will be available for consideration as part of the negotiations of a future agreement for fire and emergency medical services between Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande. Staff from Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande will work on mutually agreeable fire service levels and related governance and contractual documents that would be brought to the respective Councils for review this spring, prior to proposed implementation beginning on July 1.
Staff Report: Fire and Emergency Medical Services Review Page 3 February 27, 2023
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact associated with receiving this presentation. Subsequent policy decisions by the Council would have identified fiscal impacts.
ALTERNATIVES
The Council has the following alternatives to consider:
1) Receive a presentation on a review conducted by Baker Tilly to assess current and future needs for fire and emergency medical services provided by the Five Cities Fire Authority in Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande and provide input to staff; or 2) Provide alternative direction to staff.
PUBLIC NOTIFICATION
The agenda was posted in accordance with the Brown Act.
Attachments
1. Third Amendment to the Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement Attachment 1