Fire Department Under Public Scrutiny : Spending: An audit is under way. Critics say the county agency is too top-heavy and generous with overtime pay.

Seven weeks after nearly losing 42% of its funding to state budget cuts, the Ventura County Fire Department has come under increasing government scrutiny and public criticism.

County Auditor-Controller Tom Mahon’s office is auditing the department’s finances and management policies while taking hints from firefighters and taxpayers’ groups alike on how the $45-million-a-year Ventura County Fire Protection District can be run more economically.

Supervisors Vicky L. Howard and Maggie Kildee pressed for the audit, which Mahon said is due out by month’s end.

“It’s time for us to take a good look at the fire district and the way it’s organized and see if there’s a better way to do the job,” Howard said.

“I think they do a good job,” she added. “But the costs are extremely high, and I think there are questions about overtime that need to be answered.”

Some critics have accused the department of being too generous with overtime pay, top-heavy with high-ranked officers and lax on fiscal management.

Others question its personnel policies--such as assigning three or more firefighters around the clock to every single truck and putting field battalion chiefs on 24-hour shifts instead of sending them home on call at the end of an eight-hour shift.

While Ventura County department officials maintain that safety and thrift guide their management, they admit they have begun to re-examine how things work.

The department is busy reviewing everything from where stations operate to whether firefighters should be trained as paramedics, said Deputy Chief Bob Holaway.

“I think we were probably more affected by the proposed budget than any other agency in the county,” said Holaway, who oversees daily operations, including budget. “We had to look at cutting 42% of our costs, and we had to go through widespread layoff notices.

“That had a distinct impact on morale and a distinct impact on the people who used our services,” Holaway said. “And it has opened the door for many people to raise questions.”

While the mix of crisis and criticism finally shook the department into taking a hard look at ways to become more efficient, its continuity of leadership has suffered under a frequent change in leadership officials said.

A ragged succession of four fire chiefs in eight years hobbled the department’s ability for long-range planning, said Asst. County Chief Administrative Officer Bob Hirtensteiner, a statement with which Holaway agreed.

When Chief Stanley E. Masson retired in 1985 from the post he had held for 14 years, the helm was not taken over for long.

Wesley B. Kilcrease, who came from San Diego, served as chief until he resigned in 1988 amid differences with other department managers. His successor, Rand-Scott Coggan, was chief only until 1990, when a troubled family business in Florida prompted him to step down and return home.

Coggan was replaced by the first department insider since Masson, Fire Chief George E. Lund, now a 26-year department veteran.

“They never got down to improving things that needed to be improved,” said Hirtensteiner, who served as liaison between the department and the Board of Supervisors between the tenures of the three most recent chiefs.

“There’s no doubt they need to look at things, like ‘Are the stations in the places they should be?’, daily operations, and of course they’re on top of that today because George has been in there,” Hirtensteiner said last week. “What’s hurting them today is limitation of resources.”

Less money means less staff. And fire officials said that forces them to cover all the shifts by paying out more overtime--an issue that tops several critics’ complaint lists.

“The cost of overtime and the way it’s used is our main concern--whether or not the department allows their members to take advantage of overtime,” said Jere Robings, head of the Ventura-based Alliance for Taxpayers, which raised the issue with Mahon. “I’ve talked to retired firefighters who have told me that certainly they benefited considerably from the overtime.”

Ventura County firefighting personnel earned an average $13,861 in overtime in the last fiscal year, ranging from $6,680 on average for firefighters to an average $19,517 for captains, according to department records.

But Deputy Chief Holaway said critics are misinformed if they believe the overtime tab is a sign of mismanagement.

“Currently, over 95% of overtime costs are for maintaining staffing at fire stations” to replace sick, vacationing or laid-off firefighters, said Holaway. “Without that staffing, you’d close the fire stations.”

The remaining 5% overtime is earned on occasions such as fires that last past the end of firefighters’ shifts and long-term projects that must be finished on overtime to meet deadlines, he said.

Filling staff vacancies with overtime costs about the same as hiring additional full-time firefighters, Holaway said--a rationale echoed by officials in neighboring departments.

Wayne Schmidt, editor of the Fire and Police Personnel Reporter, said fire departments around the country commonly cover vacancies left by layoffs, illness and vacation with firefighters on overtime.

“Ideally, they’re earning none--if it’s a well-managed department (and) you thought everything out ahead of time,” said Schmidt, whose periodical covers trends in police and fire departments nationwide. “The reality is something different because of all the problems. When you’ve got people retiring and dying and injured, they have to be replaced, unless you had the luxury of always being overstaffed.”

Holaway said that the overtime bill could be somewhat lower, were it not for a clause in the union contract that allows firefighters to claim overtime for any hours worked beyond their normal shifts, even if that shift included sick days or vacation.

But Ken Maffei, president of the Ventura County Professional Firefighters’ Assn., said eliminating that clause, which the union had earlier accepted in lieu of a pay raise, would not save much.

What might save more, he said, is reducing the ratio of management and support staff to firefighters.

The department recently juggled assignments for its 16 battalion chiefs, 12 of whom worked 24-hour field shifts to supervise emergency response, while four worked eight-hour daytime shifts overseeing the administrative tasks of fire prevention, equipment support, personnel and training.

After two were laid off July 3 in budget cuts, six were left on 24-hour field shifts, while eight were put on eight-hour daytime shifts. Half of those on daytime shifts do administrative tasks while the other four supervise the department’s four battalions and go out on emergency calls.

The schedule changes are expected to reduce overtime costs for the battalion chiefs and save $100,000 a year, he said.

Maffei agreed the move cut man-hours, but it still leaves an excess of managers, he said.

“We wonder if it’s necessary in light of the fiscal situation that they allege we’re in,” Maffei said. “They didn’t reduce any chiefs. They assigned them to do administrative functions at headquarters. . . . We question if that’s necessary. Could those functions be performed by the ones out in the operations division in between emergencies?”

But Holaway said the administrative battalion chiefs barely have time to squeeze in work on long range strategy between their regular duties.

Other critics have questioned salaries earned by some county firefighters.

While county firefighters earn salaries similar to those in other departments--from $31,845 to $38,818 per year--some other fire employees earn more than similar employees in other Ventura County departments.

While heavy-equipment operators for the county Department of Public Works earn up to $32,976 a year, fire department bulldozer operators earn $49,104, said County Public Works Director Art Goulet.

“You can see the disparity there,” he said.

But firefighter union chief Ken Maffei said that public works equipment operators’ duties are not nearly as dangerous as driving a bulldozer through a brush fire.

“Art Goulet can say what he wants about them, but the fact is they’re out there on the fire line and his aren’t,” Maffei said.

Other department outsiders have questioned whether money could be saved by cutting back staffing on firetrucks in districts that have a history of fewer emergencies than others.

“We asked about the feasibility of having two men on a truck for certain crews,” said Mike Saliba, head of the Ventura County Taxpayers’ Assn. “And we looked at a map of where the fire stations were located, and some were constructed during times when there were different demographics in the county. We thought it would be proper for the audit to look at where the stations are located.”

And Taxpayers Alliance head Jere Robings questioned why there are 111 captains to 235 firefighters and engineers--an apparent surfeit of brass.

Deputy Chief Holaway said his department will be looking closely at the number and dispersion of fire stations, to see if money can be saved by moving or closing any of them.

Department officials also are examining--at the supervisors’ request--whether more revenue can be brought in by training firefighters as paramedics and charging patients for transportation to the hospital, he said.

But the number of firefighters the department assigns per truck is guided by a federal law that requires three people on scene in a hazardous atmosphere such as a fire--two inside and one outside, Holaway said.

“Part of the really frustrating thing for me is people do not understand how their fire service works, and they’re making comments as an uninformed person,” he said.

“The reason you have the same number of captains as firefighters is each truck is staffed by three people--the captain who’s in charge, the engineer who drives the truck and makes sure all the equipment works, and the firefighter,” he said.

“The battalion chief shows up and does logistical command, and oversees the public’s safety and the firefighter’s safety, and takes care of making sure the firefighters have everything they need.”

Supervisor Howard said taxpayers have asked her why they see firefighters driving their trucks to go grocery shopping, or why sometimes more than one truck responds to a simple fender bender.

“As long as things are running smoothly and people aren’t asked to put up more tax dollars, they’ll put up with the status quo,” she said. “But these are tough times, people are being asked to live on less money, and when they’re asked to pay more for this service, they start to ask questions.”

Holaway explained that firefighters on duty must always stay together near their trucks in case of an emergency call.

“Part of the problem that people don’t realize is we’re a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year operation,” he said.

Firefighters’ Overtime Pay

Ventura County fire officials said it is common among fire departments to pay extensive overtime pay rather than hire additional personnel to fill in during vacations and other vacancies. Here are average overtime benefits paid to firefighters during fiscal 1992-93:

Number Average Department Total Spent Employed Overtime Pay Los Angeles County $51,894,430 2,711 $19,142.17 Ventura County $4,518,668 326 $13,860.94 Santa Barbara County $2,356,000 170 $13,858.82 City of Ventura $1,404,368 71 $19,808 Oxnard $797,770 69 $11,561.88

Source: County and city fire departments