Committee formed to discuss Sutter County FD financial woes
Two county supervisors have been appointed to an ad hoc committee to brainstorm short- and long-term solutions to the Sutter County Fire Department’s financial woes.
The Sutter County Board of Supervisors approved the formation of a committee at its meeting Tuesday and appointed supervisors Jim Whiteaker and Mike Ziegenmeyer.
The decision comes after the Sutter County Grand Jury last month released its annual report, calling the service area
“dangerously understaffed and alarmingly underfunded.” It cites sky-rocketing workers’ compensation claims from firefighter injuries, aging infrastructure and equipment, and low staffing: one firefighter on per shift.
Sutter County Fire Chief John Shalowitz said the formation of the committee is a great step in the right direction. The committee will include Shalowitz, Ziegenmeyer and Whiteaker, representatives from the labor negotiations union, and a representative from the County Administrator’s office, he said.
“I’m definitely excited about the Board’s involvement and that they expressed as much interest in the fire department’s situation that they did,” Shalowitz said Wednesday. “I’m excited to see what we can come up with and get that information out to the public.”
Ziegenmeyer says the issue hits close to home – his father helped start the Sutter Fire Department in the 1950s, his brother has been
a volunteer firefighter for 17 years, and Ziegenmeyer himself was a volunteer for a few years.
“Something has to be done,” he said Thursday. “The committee is the first step and it’s going to take a lot of time and effort not just from the committee but everyone in the county.”
The committee hopes to host its first meeting by the end of this week to approve the department’s acceptance of a Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant to fund six firefighters, which will also require matching funds from the county. Whiteaker said he is fully supportive of this shortterm solution.
“(The Grand Jury) got it right,” Whiteaker said Wednesday. “It’s up to the Board of Supervisors to look at the fire services and increase our firefighters’ capacity and so we’re looking at several options on how to do that.”
The grand jury found that a special fire tax for the district – one of three primary funding sources – was established in 1997 without an inflation index, resulting in the current situation where annual expenditures
are surpassing recurring revenue. The average household pays an average of $40 a year.
Because of a lack of funding, staff levels have been compromised, resulting in safety risks for fire personnel and citizens, and volunteers are becoming harder and harder to find. Firefighter injuries have also resulted in significant increases in workers compensation claims over recent years – costs in 2015 were $64,347 compared to the last fiscal year’s estimate of $275,171, or an increase of 328 percent. Shalowitz said Wednesday that those costs are projected to jump even higher for the 2019-20 fiscal year: up to $478,000 from $65,000 – more than a 600 percent increase.
Both supervisors said the grand jury’s findings came as no surprise. But Ziegenmeyer said the report will help the committee work to solve the problem alongside a chief and firefighters who will do whatever it takes.
“I think we’re both excited to be part of the solution,” he said. “We have a problem: we are running out of money to fund this fire department.”