Encinitas officials are debating whether to end the city’s participation in a 16-year-old, cooperative agreement with Del Mar and Solana Beach that allows the three cities to split the cost of some higher-ranking fire department employees.
A proposal calling for Encinitas to now strike out on its own will be considered by the City Council at a special meeting at 4 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 505 S. Vulcan Ave.
“While the agreement once served as a cost-effective and regionally coordinated solution, Encinitas has outgrown the structure,” Fire Chief Josh Gordon wrote in a report prepared for Wednesday’s meeting. “With rising service demands, an expanding population and increasingly complex public safety needs, the time has come for Encinitas to establish an independent fire department that reflects its scope, priorities and strategic trajectory.”
Under the of the t Cooperative Management Services Agreement, Encinitas currently expects to receive $850,000 in payments from the other two cities for management employee expenses in the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. If the city terminates the agreement, it will need to come up with that money out of its own budget, Gordon wrote.
Established in 2009, the cooperative agreement originally included four communities — Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar, Encinitas and Solana Beach. They agreed to split expenses using a weighted calculation that considered each community’s population, geographic area, call volume and existing fire department staffing levels. Encinitas provided the fire chief, Rancho Santa Fe contributed battalion chief coverage.
The agreement has been adjusted in the years since, adding positions, including a training officer, a senior deputy fire marshal and an istrative fire captain, Gordon noted in his report. In 2013, Rancho Santa Fe terminated its participation.
While leaving the agreement now will come with added costs for Encinitas, there are also many benefits, Gordon wrote. Key among them is that Encinitas will be better able to cope with the new needs of its population, Gordon wrote, mentioning that the city isn’t the place it was when the agreement was first inked.
“Since 2009, Encinitas has experienced a surge in residential development, tourism and aging population-related (emergency medical service) calls,” he wrote. “These trends have created a scale of service demand that far sures the shared model’s original design.”
The city now handles more than 6,500 emergency incidents, while Del Mar and Solana Beach together for less than 2,300 calls, Gordon wrote.
Terminating the city’s participation in the agreement would allow Encinitas fire officials to better focus on city-specific issues, increasing its wildfire planning abilities and improving its chances for grant funding, he added.
And, he stressed, ending the city’s participation in the management employee cost-sharing agreement will not end the city’s participation in other regional fire-fighting efforts. The city’s firefighters will continue to respond to mutual aid calls, and participate in countywide training, t purchasing programs and disaster response collaboration.
