City Manager John Schaefer made his budget recommendations to the San Marino City Council at its Wednesday, May 11 council meeting. The presentation allowed the city manager to present his narrowed list of budget requests for the 2016-17 fiscal year.
The budget showed a surplus of approximately $1.5 million, not including salary increases.
All city departments’ budgets were reviewed, but it was the San Marino Police and Fire Departments that garnered the most attention from the city council, particularly in the area of personnel changes.
The police department pulled its requests for two new police officers and a new fulltime records clerk in the coming year’s budget, but maintained the need for reclassifying its two lieutenants.
Instead of promoting Lieutenants Richard Ward and Aaron Blondè to the role of captain, Police Chief John Incontro and Schaefer agreed on reclassifying them as commanders.
“The reason why we’ve landed on the title ‘commander’ is because while I want to give those guys a rank promotion, I don’t want to give away a lot of money,” said Schaefer. He added, “If you want to go be a police chief, you do typically have to be a captain or a commander.”
Schaefer explained that the change would not have an immediate fiscal impact, but “over the long term [the change] is going to have a cost implication,” he said.
Both lieutenants have been doing captain-level work for over a year, added Chief Incontro.
Mayor Allan Yung pressed Chief Incontro and Fire Chief Mario Rueda “to go back to the department and to say this is how many staff we need,” essentially “rewriting job descriptions and salaries.”
“I’m reinventing your wheel,” Mayor Yung put it succinctly.
In response, Chief Incontro emphasized his efforts to cut costs, noting the requested purchase of a new analytics software that would make hiring a crime analyst unnecessary.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to change functions and reduce costs,” he said.
Chief Incontro left in personnel requests for upgrading a civilian supervisor to an administrative manager at an increased cost of $8,692 for the first year, and upgrading a part-time records clerk to fulltime at an increased cost of $53,868.
Concluding the police department presentation, Schaefer transitioned to a budget presentation on the fire department.
Prominent in the fire department budget discussion was the debate over whether the fire engine should be staffed by three or four firefighters. Fire Chief Rueda, Deputy Chief Mark Phillips and six firefighters were present for the entire fire department presentation.
Schaefer recommended $183,000 of overtime pay be budgeted for the 2016-17 fiscal year, even though that amount would cover less than half of the department’s 2015-16 fiscal year overtime costs.
Chief Rueda claimed he hopes to have a deployment study analyzing the efficiency of the shared fire command system between the cities of San Marino, San Gabriel and South Pasadena in his hands by the time those funds are depleted.
The study, which will be conducted by a third party and cost the city $20,000, is one of the budget items for approval in front of the council.
Rueda said he is especially concerned with Council member Steven Huang’s proposal to lay off three firefighter/paramedics and run the fire engine with three firefighters year-round as part of Huang’s strategy to pay down the city’s unfunded liability.
“As we sharpen our pencil here in San Marino our neighbors are much less likely to be willing to supply that mutual aid here for free indefinitely,” Rueda said. “If San Marino decides we will sharpen our pencil, potentially on the backs of others, that may not bode well.”
Rueda recommended that the council look at the deployment study later in the year before reaching a decision on the matter.
Huang did not want the council to arrive at a decision, either, until each council member has an opportunity to review his position paper about the fire department.
Huang released his second position paper during the budget presentation, analyzing cost-saving measures in the fire department. He withdrew that paper by the end of the meeting, after a powerful speech from firefighter/paramedic Sam Benites of the San Marino Fire Department.
During the meeting’s second public comment portion near the end of the six-hour-long meeting, Benites addressed the council regarding firefighter staffing.
“If you cut one of my crew members, that’s one less pair of eyes watching my back while I’m providing medical care on a traffic collision,” said Benites. “One less set of hands to lift debris off of me if I’m stuck in a building collapse.”
Benites even put his job on the line for one of the three firefighters that would lose his job if Huang’s proposal became a reality.
“If you guys do decide to fire three firefighters, I will forfeit my job for Richard Fixsen, the married father of two, sitting in the back of this room, so he can continue to feed his family,” Benites said.
Council member Huang affirmed his support to firefighters, noting his active involvement in the passage of the Public Safety Tax, and apologized to the firefighters who would have been impacted by his proposal.
Schaefer made his proposal, balancing Huang’s and Chief Rueda’s differing opinions, with a similar situation in mind that resembled the current debate.
Schaefer argued that South Pasadena might eliminate a fourth firefighter on its engines if San Marino goes that route, the way they did with battalion chiefs a few years ago. The reason, again, was to cut costs.
“Mario’s concern is, if we start running the engine with three guys all the time, and I will tell you the South Pasadena city manager has told me he’s looking at this, he’s going to say ‘well heck, why should I run four guys on the engine all the time?’” Schaefer said.
He added that South Pasadena may think, “If they can run three I’m going to run three. I’m not going to pay to have that guy available all the time for San Marino.”
In agreement with Schaefer, Council member Steve Talt took a middle-of-the-road approach. He said, “You budget 12 firefighters. You run with four as often as you can. If someone doesn’t show up and the chief feels, based on actual experience, it’s okay to run three that day, then we run with three that day. And after a year or two we reassess to see the actual risk of doing so.”
Vice Mayor Richard Sun echoed Talt’s comments. In response, Chief Rueda explained that his department cannot use the same predictive staffing methods as the police department.
“It is impossible for me to predict when the next heart attack is,” said Chief Rueda. “We require six people every day, 365 days a year because we don’t know when the next problem will hit.”
Schaefer clarified that current talks with the fire union will give the city the flexibility to force the fire department to run with three firefighters on the engine when needed.
At the end of the presentation, the Mayor, referring to firefighter overtime pay as a “bleeding source,” very sternly told Chief Rueda, “$183,000 is what you have for the whole year, not a penny more.”
Though it appears that the council still has a great deal to discuss, Schaefer warned, “By the first week of June all of these issues need to be resolved so that you can approve the budget.”
The council will be presented with an updated budget proposal at its next meeting on Friday, May 27 at 8 a.m. in San Marino City Hall.
