As the article by Edward Ring below details, a city in Southern California — Placentia — has done the unthinkable. They terminated their firefighting contract with the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) and replaced them with an independent city firefighting agency.
Cost savings for the city of Placentia was the driving force. The average OCFA firefighter costs taxpayers $241,000 a year — not fully counting the unfunded pension liability debt. The city is saving millions annually while actually IMPROVING their service, based on firefighter metrics.
“According to the city’s ‘final quarterly update‘ on Placentia’s Fire and EMS Services, released on October 20th [2020], in their first three months of operation, the new independent fire department serviced 40 percent more daily calls than the prior year with OCFA, reduced local response times by over 3 minutes when compared to OCFA, and reduced the need for mutual aid from neighboring cities by 85 percent.”
Among the savings, the new agency firefighters get a 401k plan rather than the six-figure guaranteed pensions that are becoming common for retiring CA union firefighters. The new Placentcia agency uses mostly a combination of part-time firefighters and volunteers — eliminating the need for expensive overtime so common in union firefighter departments. Medical calls are handled by an ambulance service. Read the article.
The neighboring cities’ firefighter union bosses are pissed. They are telling their bought-and-paid-for city councils not to enter into “mutual aid” agreements with Placentia.
That union boss insistence means that people in those union-operated cities who live closer to Placentia than their own fire department stations will get slower response times — increasing the potential deaths and destruction in these union-controlled towns. Apparently firefighter union bosses don’t care.
Sadly, Placentia may be the last CA city to be able to make this change. Recognizing the threat to the unions, Democrat politicians in Sacramento banned any CA city from making this change after the end of 2020. All cities have to keep using CalPERS-pension covered union firefighters.
In California public employee labor unions rule. LITERALLY rule.
If you want to know more about alternatives to labor union monopolies — especially related to brush fire threats — read my five-part LOS ANGELES TIMES debate with an academic labor union apologist (we both were paid by the TIMES for the debate). It’s still germane years later.
I’m not proposing volunteer departments for our urban areas, but these professional, volunteer firefighters are a fascinating contrast with California’s incredibly expensive union firefighter compensation levels. Volunteer firefighters are America’s TRUE firefighting heroes.