Column: Albany Fire Services Remain Excellent Value in Tough Economic Times

By James Berry, Albany Fire Fighters Association president 

One of the reasons Albany has remained a wonderful place to live and work over the years is the interaction between the community and local government. The works hard to create an infrastructure that empowers people to first help themselves and their neighbors, then, when they have exhausted their personal resources, rely on the can-do attitude of their local Fire Department.

The Albany Fire Department has faced the difficulty of recruiting and retaining quality employees. Through good faith collective bargaining, we have successfully mitigated this revolving-door problem. The Albany Fire Fighters Association (AFFA) and the City realized that new employees are looking for a position with a salary comparable to the median of the surrounding agencies, as well as a health care package that provides for them and their families. We understood that our new recruits were not as concerned about benefits such as a defined retiree healthcare plan or the highest level retirement package (PERS 3%@50) that most other agencies enjoy.

Though not immediately apparent from the presentations at the , the Albany Fire Department covers more than one-third of its own budget through our fire prevention and inspection program, permit revenues, ambulance fees, voter-approved EMS tax measures and other revenue sources. 

Few cities have a dedicated transport ambulance; most cities receive this vital service from a private, for-profit provider. We maintain exclusive rights to provide our citizens with the highest quality pre-hospital emergency care. It should be noted that the Fire Department has been frugal with its spending and proactive in an effort to find alternative funding sources of our vital service.

Unique to the Albany Fire Department is our efficiency through flex staffing. No other fire agency in the greater Bay Area operates as we do with cross-staffed apparatus. We utilize six on-shift personnel to cover an ambulance, engine, ladder truck and brush truck, depending on the need dictated by the type of emergency.

Because of this, we have kept staffing levels to a minimum, thereby reducing operational costs. As a result, we have increased the scope and depth of our training, as each employee must be fully prepared to operate in a variety of capacities.

The question of contracting for services or consolidation with other agencies has been raised during recent budget discussions. These options frequently result in the loss of local control and do not always reduce costs, as and Emeryville. This would likely be the case in Albany as well, because our employee retirement plan and retiree health care benefits are not on par with surrounding agencies. The City of Albany is currently contracting for fire management services by with the City of Piedmont, which is saving approximately $85,000 per year. 

We have strived to maintain efficient and beneficial mutual aid agreements with our surrounding fire agencies. Through the mutual aid process, we have always received the necessary personnel and resources (engines, trucks, hazardous materials units, ambulances and fire management resources) from our neighboring agencies.

In honoring these agreements, we also give resources to our surrounding communities during their time of need.  These agreements mandate a minimum staffing model that the county has adopted for fire apparatus. It is a dynamic give and take process that works very well and saves the City of Albany an immeasurable amount of money.

Until 1994, the Albany Fire Department was normally staffed with seven personnel on duty every day, but would allow six as a minimum staffing level. This allowed the flexibility for one firefighter to not report to work (i.e., illness, vacation, etc.), without creating overtime expense. Through studying staffing levels, full-time employee costs and the impact of overtime expenses, the City and the AFFA jointly found there would be significant cost savings for the City to adopt a constant staffing model of six personnel per shift, and backfill all vacancies with overtime.

While our department’s overtime budget is of significant concern, these savings seem to have been overlooked or pushed aside. The calculations still hold true: it is less expensive to pay overtime than it is to staff three additional firefighters.

Matching the Albany firefighters’ compensation to the median of the nine agreed-upon agencies in the San Pablo Corridor is a fair and just practice, but we recognize the need to evaluate the current fiscal abilities of the City. Providing comparable compensation helps to insure we maintain a highly qualified workforce and do not return to our problems of the past. 

A standard work week for a firefighter is 56 hours. When looking at a yearly base salary for a firefighter, it is for 2,912 hours worked. In comparison, an employee working 40 hours per week works 2,080 hours a year—a difference of 832 hours! If the Fire Department were to be staffed based on a 40-hour workweek, maintaining the current level of 24/7 coverage would require an additional 7+ employees. This is certainly not a cost savings for the City.

As the AFFA voluntarily enters contract negotiations before the current contract is expired, we understand the tight fiscal times and the intentions of the City to look for cost savings wherever possible. We are committed to helping bridge the budget gap and we ourselves are looking for creative ways to save money. It is the essence of our department to be problem solvers, no matter the nature, and we will do all we can to help alleviate the current budget situation.

James Berry
Albany Fire Fighters Association president
jberry@albanyca.org