Redondo Beach ask LACoFD for survey

On the heels of Hermosa Beach going County and increasing cost to fund its own fire department, Redondo Beach city council requested LA County to perform a survey to provide fire and paramedic services.

Today Redondo staffs 3 stations with 19 firefighters per shift including harbor patrol responding to nearly 8,000 yearly calls for service.

The survey is expected to be back in 90-120 days.

LAflyer said:

On the heels of Hermosa Beach going County and increasing cost to fund its own fire department, Redondo Beach city council requested LA County to perform a survey to provide fire and paramedic services.

Today Redondo staffs 3 stations with 19 firefighters per shift including harbor patrol responding to nearly 8,000 yearly calls for service.

The survey is expected to be back in 90-120 days.

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There is little doubt that the request will be made but the vote has been delayed to July 10. The July 3 meeting was canceled.

I remember back in the day when Downey Fire Dept did multiple surverys over the years for LACOFD to take over but never got approved. Downey is one of those cities that always wanted to keep their own Police Department and Fire Department even though they are surrounded by LASO and LACOFD.

Allen, great observation. I appreciate the point oif view you are able to offer of so many public service agencies across the region that you are familiar with.

The request for a survey usually does not lead to a city joining County Fire.

Cities requesting a survey, then taking no further action in the last decade are more than requesting to conract.

Off the top of my head, West Covina, Montebello, Monterey Park, Brea, El Segundo, Downey, and after an informal request for a quote La Habra Heights ran for the hills, excuse the bad pun.

I think Downey found this last survey five years ago, or there about, came up with significant savings only realized by reducing service.

In addition to Redondo, San Gabriel has also requested a survey.

The Redondo request has me a bit stumped. There seems to be a healthy tax base there. Maybe it PD costs or a scary CALPERS forecast that has them exploring all options. A brief site search of the Daily Breeze yielded zippo.

IMHO, I thiink West Covina is the city with the worst finances that should consider contracting service since their council is reluctant to put a tax measure on the ballot, and a big deficit to fill. But who knows, the council has also been afraid to make cuts or other tough decisions voters put them office to do in the first place.

Yes Downey Fire has Station 61 - 62 - 63 and 64. So to have 4 stations within a city that is huge. If LACOFD was to take over the city they most likely would close two stations and then have the surrounding LACO stations absorb the calls. I believe Downey would not want to do it.

The reason Redondo is considering options for its fire services is that they face increasing cost staying inhouse. A multitude of issues have presented themselves which has made the city council ask questions. Things like high overtime use, mounting pension cost, estimate $18-20mil of capital cost for station modernization, ongoing labor talks and the desire to add back staffing for an engine that previously was cut as budget measure have brought about ballooning budget.

Related Redondo is also looking at a reorganization of the Police Dept which might include closing its jail and contracting out dispatching(consolidate with RCC in Hawthorne).

LA Flyer thanks for the insight. I had a good idea pension costs were in there somewhere.

Annexation will not relieve the city of capital costs for city fire stations. They own that all the way as a contract city, and being that there are no district stations adjacent to share engine or truck/quint coverage with.

The only real savings to the city I reasonably can see that could be realized by from reducing coverage in the city and perhaps sharing the cost of Squad 100 with Hermosa as a second squad covering the north end.

Allen, any contract proposal the county make will not have fire district resources picking up the workload in that one-sided of an arrangement for the simple reason that district taxdes are not supposed to be used to fund fire services in contract cities.

That is not to say it does not happen, it does, and is done blatantly in Inglewood, Pomona and La Habra.

The Downey proposal kept all stations open, with a Quint at Sta 61, Paramedia Engine at 62, Engines at 63 and 64, and a squad 64. I'm assuming District squads at 31's and 39's would be picking up a lot of the calls in Downey 61's area, but it is not detailed in the proposal.

That is the problem with these proposals, they are selling instruments, and lack the information on how it affects nearby district resources, which in this area are beyond maxed out accept squad 39.

This links goes to the proposal. http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/76199.pdf

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While indeed the city is kept on the hook for capital cost related to stations, as Hermosa just saw there can be significant savings from merely having a 'neighborhood' station versus a 'headquarter' station with room for additional command and admin staff.
With the plan to rebuild 2 stations in the next 5 years, Redondo might not require the scale of facilities if operated by the County versus having everything inhouse.

In Hermosa case the city is saving nearly 50% on cost of building a new smaller fire house with the County staffing.

Every city is unique.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the costs of rebuilding a city Sta #1, and a county station housing a BC is not that big a savings when spread out of whatever period a city may finance it with the bonds it sounds like they will have to sell to finance either.

I will stand by the belief, the only real savings here are from reducing service in the city or from pension costs, which would be much greater than capital costs if Redondo has a better retirement than the county does. Many cities and counties do and it is one of the reasons the county and its LACERA are in better shape than the 3% at 50.

It will be interesting to see where this goes as from my point of view this is not the typical 'full-service' city that shuts down it Fire Dept. Redondo is not an Inglewood or Pomona in my book. But I will never say never after seeing Long Beach contract out part of their city to LASD until they got their house, err staffing levels in order.

I am sure the price to rebuild station # 1, may be less that the property is worth based on its location. Station 2 in PVE could also assist in the south end of the city.

Auto-aid agreements that Redondo now has in place would like;y remain in some form with some changes, a structure fire in the south end would almost assuredly include Engine 2, and Squad 2 in place of a Redondo one.

In turn it looks like a Redondo based squad would serve as a great second-in in to PVE.

2's being on a first alarm may allow the concentration of equipment at the South Redondo station to be staffed with just a 3-man Engine and a Squad, and just a Quint in the North end with 100's and 21's close by also. The mall calls for a Quint or Truck to satisfy ISO within a certain amount of time.

The north end would likely see 21's and Manhattan Bch on a structure and squad 21's second or third in.



And I guess Torrance is also in the mix.

Contracting Out

There are a number of key reasons why fire services are much more affordable as a contract, "commodity service".

Biggest reason is pensions. With CalPERS the cities not only have to make up annual "investment loss" if the 7% investment target is not hit, but the employers annual rate has nearly doubled in 9 years to 15.551% of wages. Local Government also must pay losses to CalPERS if somebody retires early (lost investment years) or retires on disability. Seams like larger fire depts have less of both. Nearly every "contract city" has zero or near zero pension liability.

In the last three decades regulations and standards that fire service have to meet have skyrocketed. Departments with 1-6 stations, or even bigger, typically struggle meeting regulatory requirements. Larger departments can afford to assign full time compliance staff, both uniform and civilian, purchase tracking software, even accounting staff. LACOFD as an example just added $2 million a year for better physician oversight of EMS.

Can't speak to Redondo Beach directly, however a number of smaller departments are spending $1 million just in administrative overhead, Chiefs, office staff, training staff. There are savings in sharing, Battalion Chiefs, trucks, hazmat, paramedic squads with other areas. Savings also adds up in large scale equipment and vehicle ordering, plus savings in maintenance. Although the contract cities pay for replacement (or new) fire stations, it does appear LACOFD comes in a few million cheaper than comparable stations that are "one offs".

Those a great points you make about contracting out.

Contracting with LA County still has pension costs, but they are figured into the price tag of each unit.

Just the same as at CALPERS, investments at LACERA coming in under projection is going to get passed on to a contract city since it is part of an identifiable cost of providing service And of course a contract city still has to pay for CALPERS debt.

County fire is not the money saver you might think it is.

Only the people at the top no the real motivation behind it, but while building its Empire, County Fire entered contracts that heavily subsidized resources placed into contract cities paid by District taxpayers and called it a shared resource. BTW there is never the reverse for district resources that cover part of contract city for instance service in La Habra, Squad 101 covering the entire north end of Pomona without a cent paid.

For some odd reason, the county auditor has never put out a report indicating this has not even been looked at, and it needs to.

District taxpayers pay more fire taxes than any contract city does as compared to their assessed valuation, and the district sweetens up the contract by doing things like they do in Inglewood.

The city wanted three squads, but to make the math work the contract calls them 'shared' and pays 25% cost of Sq 171, and 50% of Sq 172 and 173, That is a steep discount and could be justified If those squads were in the district a lot.,But its not the case. Those three squads enter the district only a couple of times a day, and that is before considering District Sq 58 is always in 172's as is Paramedic eng 18

Another gimmick pulled here to boost the bodies deployed in the city high while keeping costs and keep a truck in the city was to take an Engine out of service at a nearby district house, combine with14's three bodies paid for by Inglewood and you now have an impressive 6 more firefighters in the city and needed truck service a half the cost. The county justified it because the truck was a regional shared unit. There was a big flaw though. The county was already paying for parts of two other quints right next to 14's also
at 159's and 160's.

The county has never had trucks at three adjoining stations, and the only two adjoining I can come up with are Q3 and Q27, so it's clear the district did not need 3 trucks here or anywhere.

La Habra is even worse, but for another time.

The feasibility study is in. LACo estimates it can save the City $3-6mil annually depending on what station/equipment configuration is chosen.

Link to document:
http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/133070.pdf

Local news article:
Redondo Beach could save millions, improve service by switching to L.A. County Fire, according to report – Daily Breeze

City Council got cold feet.

Even with projected $51mil savings over 10-years and 75% of local firefighters in approval, the city council voted 3-2 to pull the plug moving forward with talks with County.

Its like the City of Downey. They have been trying for 30 years at least to try and get LACOFD to absorb them

You would think cites considering going LACFD would be thinking twice , with The Recent LACFD TV commercials.
complaining that Dispatch call has ski Rocketed and they need more equipment & manpower.

Robertolson said:

You would think cites considering going LACFD would be thinking twice , with The Recent LACFD TV commercials.
complaining that Dispatch call has ski Rocketed and they need more equipment & manpower.

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Calls for service have skyrocketed at most every agency that provides EMS and Redondo Beach is no exception.

Every first responder needs more manpower and equipment.

Contract cities have nothing to worry about since they get what they pay for and much more. Redondo was going to have 1/3 of their truck company as well as 20% of two paramedics squads subsidized by county fire district taxpayers. Only a few contract cities pay their fair share. I'm glad they bowed out.

The two positions per shift that county fire district taxpayers were going to shift to subsidize operations in Redondo can now be used in the district itself.

With city budget cuts including fire staffing reduction that started July 1st, Redondo Beach is seeking to explore a partnership with Los Angeles County to operate its Fire Station 3 / Harbor Patrol