ESSENTIAL VICTORY ,
THE EXPANSION OF FP-5 USHERS IN A NEW
ERA FOR SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY FIRE.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE MEMBERS OF LOCAL 935?
By Ryan Beckers
ON OCTOBER 16 , following a long and contentious public
comment session that was uniformly against, The San Bernardino
County Board of Supervisors acting as the board of directors for
the fire district voted 3-2 on a motion to expand the fire service
zone known as FP-5 across all unincorporated areas of the county.
Counting the areas and cities already under the FP-5 umbrella, the
fees collected by this expansion will generate the kind of revenue—
approximately $27 million in the first year, with a potential three
percent yearly increase—that dramatically changes the literal and
figurative fortunes of San Bernardino County Fire.
The board’s decision ends (to some extent) the department’s long-running efforts
to sustain itself. Born by cobbling together fire service areas once served by Cal-
Fire plus numerous fire protection districts such as Central Valley, Yucca Valley
and Lake Arrowhead, the agency we know as County Fire has always been a shaky
financial proposition. The limits that Proposition 13 long ago placed on the collection
of property taxes, plus the department’s status as a special district administered
by the county, as opposed to an actual department of the county, has always left us
needing supplemental funding by the BOS (they have described it as a subsidy) from
the general fund, and thus always searching for a way to break free of this with a
separate revenue stream.
This search has taken us down several paths. An initial goal—over 15 years ago—
targeted a portion of the yearly increase in funds generated by Prop 172, which was
the measure enacted to balance out the tax limitations set by Prop 13. This would
have placed us squarely in the cross-hairs of law enforcement’s political machine.
More recently, we have undertaken ambitious endeavors aimed at expanding County
Fire’s EMS transport services, which of course has the drawback of pitting us against
the interests held by private ambulance companies like American Medical Response.
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FIREWIRE • FALL 2018
We have also eyed handling protection of the state-responsible lands within the
county, thus placing us in an adversarial stance with Cal-Fire.
Ultimately, FP-5 is a fee ($153 in the first year) which provides a reliable revenue
stream without placing undue burden on most of those who will now have to pay it.
There are even some—those covered by the now-obsolete FP-6 in Red Mountain, for
example—who will actually pay a little less.
However, many property owners have bristled at the way the fee is imposed, claiming
that it is a tax which should be brought to a popular vote rather than implemented
following a written protest period that could trigger a vote or nullify the motion.
All of these considerations—and many others—weighed heavily on the team tasked
with getting this effort up and over all the obstacles in the way. The burden was
shared by department management as well as Local 935.
This article asks some of those involved about the difficult
aspects of the process and what it ultimately means for the
department. In addition, on behalf of a Local 935 membership
hoping for wages inline with more of the agencies around us,
we ask about the future of that goal.