CA Officials Exploring Fire Department Merger

Fullerton leaders are will to explore joining the Orange County Fire Authority, a move officials with the regional fire service estimate could save the city millions of dollars and enhance some services.

Talks are in the “very beginning” stages, said Fullerton Mayor Fred Jung, and a decision isn’t imminent. But officials have committed to researching if there would be cost savings and service improvements with a switch to the agency that operates out of 77 fire stations in 23 cities and unincorporated areas throughout the county.

During a presentation to the City Council on Tuesday, OCFA officials laid out the proposal to absorb Fullerton’s department, saying the benefits of a transition could be “significant” cost savings, better paramedic response abilities and access to more resources, such as helicopters for fire fighting and rescues.

The services would come at a cost to the city of roughly $21.5 million in the first year with an annual increase of at-most 4.5%, OCFA Division Chief Rob Capobianco said. One-time “start-up” expenses, such as costs to change signage, new uniforms and transitioning computer programs and equipment, would tack on another nearly $1.6 million.

But long term, savings associated with joining OCFA could be millions annually, the agency estimated. The city’s current budget for its Fire Department is $27.3 million.

The city would no longer face a number of responsibilities, such as recruiting and hiring, labor negotiations and management of emergency computer systems, and that is part of where savings would come from, OCFA’s proposal said. Fixed into the annual price for services would be the cost of replacing vehicles and apparatus and maintaining fire stations, Capobianco said.

To Fullerton’s existing fleet, OCFA proposes converting a ladder truck at Station 6 in the northwest corner of the city into a paramedic unit that could provide enhanced medical care, adding paramedic gear and two “dual role” firefighter-paramedics there to respond to calls from the station, Capobianco said in an email.

“Currently, the initial truck response is basic life support, and the paramedic level care is dispatched at the same time from a surrounding unit that has advanced life support capability,” he said.

The services currently deployed there are “not abnormal,” Capobianco said, “but our goal in adding a (sixth) paramedic unit to the city would be to increase depth of coverage and relieve some of the pressure off the busy downtown units.”

All Fullerton firefighters would be hired by OCFA, according to the agency’s proposal, and non-sworn employees would be brought on “based on vacancies and OCFA’s needs,” Capobianco said during the meeting. He added that “there is a true desire to ensure that people are not left behind, and that this process is in the best interest of all the people working not (just) for Fullerton, but also for the OCFA.”

Mayor Jung said city leaders were asked in 2020 during labor negotiations to explore OCFA membership. During Tuesday’s meeting, the president of the union representing Fullerton’s firefighters said the OCFA presentation was “a big step toward a brighter future for our fire service in the city of Fullerton,” and he urged the City Council to move forward with evaluating to proposal.

“ Your Fire Department is struggling right now,” Fullerton Firefighter Association President Dan Lancaster said during the meeting’s public comment period. “And we don’t have long until more firefighters are lost to surrounding agencies. We need your help to get back on track to better serve this community.”

In 2019, the city of Garden Grove replaced its Fire Department with the OCFA services, anticipating a cost savings, and Santa Ana joined in 2012. In 2020, Placentia left the regional agency, seeing opportunities in running its own department.

Jung told city staffers the council will need “all the data points in real time” before making a decision, including a better look at the predicted savings, a breakdown of start-up costs and the impact of having access to OCFA’s regional services, among other considerations.

Spending the time to conduct the research is a “worthy effort,” he said, if it means they uncover opportunities to cut costs and  improve services.

“If the response time to our residents is faster, if the coverage for our region and city is better, then certainly it’s worthy of exploration, at least just to see what the numbers are like,” he said later in an interview. “If there’s a cost saving involved, I think we owe it to our residents to find out and see what the actual numbers are. And that’s the point of where we’re at right now.”

There is time to suss out the best decision for the city, he said, adding Fullerton isn’t suffering from a “substantial deficit in services” with its Fire Department or the same fiscal issues it had been just a few years ago. City officials recently approved a 2.5% budget cut, he said.

“We’re in a good spot, I think,” Jung said, “and we’ll move forward in the most deliberative manner, one way or the other.”

What joining the OCFA would mean for the Brea Fire Department, which shares a fire chief and command staff with Fullerton, is unclear. Jung said that would have to be worked out if Fullerton leaders decide to press ahead with the Fire Authority, but  “we’re not at that point yet,” he said. “We’re not even close.”

The research on OCFA’s proposal will be brought back to the council for discussion at a later meeting, possibly next month.

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