Arroyo Grande said it might leave 5 Cities Fire Authority. Now SLO County could step in
Arroyo Grande might not have to leave the Five Cities Fire Authority after all.
After an explosive staff report last week listed all the reasons the city could no longer participate in the joint fire department with Grover Beach and Oceano — ending with City Manager Jim Bergman concluding the city might need to form its own department unless significant funding changes were made before an April 1 deadline — the issue has caught the county’s attention.
At the City Council meeting Tuesday, Bergman said he was contacted by County Administrative Officer Wade Horton to arrange a meeting with Five Cities Fire Authority representatives and the Board of Supervisor’s ad hoc committee on special fire districts.
The county meeting would be a first step toward having it intervene and take over responsibility for the Oceano Community Services District’s fire services.
As it is, Bergman says the CSD cannot afford to pay for planned budget increases at the joint fire department as it transitions from volunteer to full-time firefighters.
“Just getting (the county) to the table is really important,” Bergman said during Tuesday’s meeting. “I think they are cognizant, and I assume they want to help their community solve this problem as everyone is transitioning from reserves to full-time personnel.”
What the county would need
If it were to assume responsibility, the county would likely require all of the CSD’s existing property tax allocation for fire services, $987,362, plus several hundred thousand dollars more to fully staff an Oceano station, according to a November county report on the issue.
The county reaching out to Arroyo Grande at essentially the 11th hour was welcome news to the majority of the council.
All voted in favor of continuing the discussion to March 12 to give time for negotiations between the fire authority and the county.
If the talks still seem to be progressing at that time, then the council could vote to extend the Fire Authority’s joint agreement with Oceano and Grover Beach up to six months to give more time for a final agreement.
“I’m definitely in favor of the extension and trying to go back to the table with the county and have a discussion,” Councilwoman Kristen Barneich said during discussion Tuesday night. “I just want us all to be able to feel like this is a fair model, and then move on to something else and fund it appropriately. And not keep having the Fire Authority and the fire chief keep coming back to us year after year and beg for money.”
“We need to fund a full-time authority,” she added.
If the talks are unsuccessful, the city would still be faced with deciding if it wants to stay with the joint department or go it alone.
Money short in A.G.
Because of its already tenuous budget position — the city laid off workers and cut office hours at City Hall to avoid a $900,000 budget shortfall in June 2018 — any increase in city spending will lead to difficult decisions, city leaders warned.
According to Bergman, under the current formula, the city would be on the hook for an additional $400,000 in 2023 to pay for the authority’s transition to full-time.
That translates to roughly four city staff positions, he said.
“It is a substantial amount of money,” he said. “Our budget would look very different than it does today.”
“The ultimate truth here is the county is in the driver’s seat,” Mayor Caren Ray Russom said during discussion.
She said she hopes the groups can come to an agreement that would allow all three South County agencies to revisit the Fire Authority’s funding breakdown, and adjust the proportion of the budget each group is responsible for.
“We have some very, very difficult conversations to have with our community coming into budget time,” she said. “Are we going to let go of Camp Arroyo Grande? Are we going to let go of our rec department? .... We are going to have that conversation — that’s going to get revisited, and that’s going to get hard.”
Grover Beach is up next
Grover Beach will decide its stance on the issue at its upcoming meetings either March 4 or March 18.
Though city staff have not yet released an official recommendation on Grover Beach’s stance on the issue, Mayor Jeff Lee told the Arroyo Grande City Council on Tuesday night that he looked forward to working with both Arroyo Grande and Oceano to strengthen the authority.
Lee told the council that Grover Beach residents rated public safety as the most important service a city could provide last year, prompting the city to prioritize funding the Five Cities Fire Authority’s full transition plan.
“We look forward to continuing to work with our partner agencies on improving the Five Cities Fire Authority as an organization as a whole,” he said. “Just because we are, as you have said this evening, all better together.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2019 at 1:57 PM.
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