Council member questions expenses in fire department calls

Menifee's ladder truck is one of the improvements made to the fire department. (Photo courtesy of City of Menifee)

By Doug Spoon, Editor

City of Menifee staff members will do further research on local fire department calls in response to a council member’s concern about the number of fire engine runs outside the city.

At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Menifee Fire Division Chief Mark Scoville reported in his quarterly update that in the last three months, Menifee Fire Department stations responded to 440 calls in neighboring cities. Those “assist” calls are part of a cooperative agreement among fire departments in Riverside County. In reciprocation, only 212 responses from other fire departments into Menifee were made by other fire departments.

Mayor Pro Tem Dean Deines, who has expressed concern in the past about the number of outgoing fire department runs, raised questions again at Wednesday’s meeting. In fact, Deines tracked Menifee’s outgoing “assist” runs versus incoming runs for the last year, and the numbers especially concerned him.

In the last year, Menifee Fire Department stations made 1,688 “assist” runs to supplement the coverage of other departments. In return, Menifee received only 820 assists from other cities. Although it’s difficult to put a dollar figure on it, that translates to considerable Menifee taxpayer money going to other communities.

“That’s a lot of taxpayer money going to another city and leaving our residents vulnerable,” Deines said. “I don’t think our taxpayers would be too excited to know that their tax dollars are going to other cities.”

Deines asked Scovill how many of those assist runs involved one of Menifee’s two medic squad units of the city's relatively new ladder truck. Scovill replied that the current numbers reported do not reflect the type of assistance given.

Deines is concerned that leaving only one medic unit in the city during an assist run is risky. He is also concerned about the possible absence of the Station 76 ladder unit – the only one in Menifee.

“We’re the ones who paid for those units,” Deines said. “We did it because there was not enough response time for our residents. Now we’re back to where we started before we brought the second paramedic unit online. We’re kind of defeating our purposes here in purchasing and staffing another paramedic unit just so it can go out to another city on a call.”

Statistics show that Menifee has made more “assist” calls to Perris than any other neighboring city. In the last year, Menifee fire stations have responded to Perris calls 518 times. In return, Menifee has received assists from Perris only 121 times.

Asked for an explanation, Scovill said part of the reason is that Perris has only two fire stations in its entire city (Menifee has four). He said Perris has purchased property to build a third station, but there is no timetable for when construction would begin.

“It’s not just the runs to other cities,” Deines said. “It’s the cost of wear and tear on our vehicles. We’re expending those funds on another jurisdiction. It would be nice if we could know how many of those runs involve the [medic squad] apparatus.”

City Manager Armando Villa said city staff would look into the situation.

“We’ll review the contract,” he said about the cooperative agreement with other cities.