Advisory Group Criticizes Fire Department : Report: Although the panel’s evaluation echoes a 1993 county audit, it is not as critical. Supervisors will consider study next week.

A citizens advisory group studying problems in the Ventura County Fire Department criticizes the agency’s overtime policies, sick pay procedures and vehicle maintenance costs in a report to be considered by the Board of Supervisors next week.

The panel’s evaluation echoes a county audit last year that found the department is top-heavy with managers, overly generous with overtime and sloppy with sick leave.

But the seven-page report is not as critical as the county audit and, on several issues, it disagrees with the audit and sides with Fire Department officials.

Andy Fox, a captain in the Los Angeles Fire Department who headed the citizens group, said the county audit was “overly critical,” adding that the citizens panel sought to offer positive recommendations for improving the department.

Critics said the citizens study is too soft on the department.

“In my opinion, it really has little value,” said Supervisor John K. Flynn, who said he believes that the panel should be disbanded because it’s a puppet of the Fire Department. “I won’t pay much attention to it.”

Fire and union officials said they were pleased with the mellower tone of the panel’s report.

“I don’t think it was as bad in comparison to the auditor’s report,” said Ken Maffei, president of the firefighters union.

Acting Fire Chief Bob Haloway said: “They looked at it more from an operational standpoint, rather than just a financial view.”

The report will be discussed by the Board of Supervisors at its Tuesday meeting. Some of the report’s recommendations and the audit’s conclusions are expected to be implemented in a long-term strategic plan that fire officials are developing and are scheduled to unveil late this year.

But county officials said no significant changes are expected at the 433-member department until a new fire chief is appointed. Ventura County Fire Chief George Lund resigned in March, saying he was frustrated by the criticism leveled at his department.

The 23-member citizens committee was formed at the urging of Fire Department officials in November, in part to help Lund respond to the audit report.

About two months ago, Chairman Bill Esty resigned in protest after the Board of Supervisors decided to exclude the Fire Department from Proposition 172 funding. Several supervisors said this week that they plan to reverse that decision and give the Fire Department some of the special sales tax money.

The panel’s study agrees with the audit that about $600,000 in annual overtime could be saved by having workers fill in for higher-paid employees when they are out, instead of paying overtime to workers at the higher level.

According to the report, an additional $270,000 could have been saved in the fiscal year 1992-93 if workers were not allowed to collect overtime and sick pay during the same pay period. But unlike the audit, the citizens report found no evidence that sick leave is abused.

The report also recommends replacing Fire Department vehicles and equipment sooner to decrease maintenance costs.

Moving the dispatch centers to the same facility as the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and shifting the department’s headquarters to the County Government Center would also slice operational costs, the report said.

The report sided with fire officials on staffing issues, although the audit had recommended paring some firefighters at less busy stations.

County Auditor-Controller Thomas O. Mahon, whose office prepared the audit, said he stood by his report, but did not want to argue with the work that the citizens committee had done.

He said he was glad to see that the citizens group agreed with him that a long-term strategic plan for the department is needed. The citizens group also seems to have had a mellowing effect on fire officials. Now, Mahon said, fire officials seem more willing to consider some of the recommendations in both studies.

“It looks like they’re starting to move down the road toward change,” he said.