Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors last week discussed equalizing fire and law enforcement funds from Proposition 172 for emergency services.
Supervisor Ted Novelli, as a board member of the Amador Fire Protection Authority oversight committee, pulled the issue from a previous agenda for more information. He thought Supervisors should advise the AFPA board to have its member entities advise them on how they are spending Prop 172 funds. He said “to me, fire and public safety money, we would each get them up equal.”
Novelli said the funds currently go 37.5 percent to fire and 37.5 percent to law enforcement. Supervisor John Plasse said they should equalize funds among police and fire, because the county now simply backfills law enforcement money with the General Fund.
Plasse said they need to decide if the portion that went to the Amador Plan and Cal-Fire should still go there. He said an “ever-increasing portion was going to fire entities, including out-of-county, that refuse to consolidate.”
Novelli said cities get Prop 172 funds but don’t tell the county how they use it, but they want to know how the county uses its funds. Plasse said “they are free to use it as they want.”
Plasse said “if Prop 172 is sent back to AFPA, then we’re asking for some specificity of how they are spending those funds.” Supervisor Brian Oneto agreed. He said: “We’re supporting city fire departments, with county General Fund dollars,” but “when there is a crash, why is there 10 vehicles out there?” People ask him and he said: “I don’t have a good answer.”
Plasse said multiple fire task force studies have come back with the same goal of consolidation of one, county-wide fire department. Cities have passed support resolutions. He said “we’re just subsidizing inefficiencies” that entities refuse to resolve when you give a larger portion of tax money to cities that is meant to go to fire.”
Supervisor Chairman Louis Boitano said: “We can no longer afford the Amador Plan,” which 20 years ago cost $142,000 for all three stations, and now is $250,000 for one station, for winter staffing, this year at the Pine Grove Mount Zion station, staffed in a contract with CDF.
Plasse said Amador County also subsidizes countywide dispatching with $200,000 a year paid to Camino. He said some cities now have employed fire fighters and enrolled them in CAL-PERS retirement, a “fiscally unsustainable retirement package. To me, it’s bad governance” and he did not want to be responsible for those city decisions. Plasse said Amador Fire Protection District has left CAL-PERS and put in place its own retirement plan.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
