Serving, Saving in Paramedic Plan

The battle over 10 paramedic vans that the Orange County Fire Authority plans to remove from service is a classic case study in retrenchment. In the search to close a deficit, the authority passed a budget in June that calls for garaging the vans and reassigning paramedics to fire engines. The plan is to save about $800,000 annually by having many of the department’s 24 paramedics fill vacant positions formerly held by firefighters. The emergency personnel still would be available for emergency calls.

But the plan has raised concerns with the Orange County Professional Firefighters Assn., which placed ads in local newspapers throughout the county saying that mothballing the vans “may be hazardous to your family’s health.” For its part, the department boldly asserts that less is more; it argues that the reorganization will result in better service by lowering response times. The firefighters answer that they are trying to preserve what association President Joe Kerr calls “depth of services.”

The issue has wide significance, because the department provides fire protection for 1.1 million people, including residents of unincorporated areas of the county. The organization controls 61 fire stations and about 1,500 firefighters, about half of them paid. Most of the 24 paramedics will be filling jobs that are currently vacant.

The two sides have taken their case on the road, for example, appearing before a group of residents in Lake Forest concerned about fire protection. Authority spokesman Capt. Scott Brown has acknowledged that many calls from upset residents have come in, but argued, “When they know what the facts are, they feel much better.”

Finding better efficiencies in tight financial times, and restructuring to deliver better services, are important. Faced with a huge deficit, the authority understandably is looking for ways to make it up. However, the existence of a $44-million reserve fund raises the question of whether some money on hand can be used.

It may be that the surplus provides some room for compromise. Some of the money might be used if the mothballing proves to have too drastic an effect on services. Or, perhaps there may be a way to keep some, but not all, of the targeted vehicles in service.