Officials at a recent joint meeting of local emergency response
providers agreed to draft a memorandum of understanding to
establish how the process of studying the viability of
regionalizing fire and EMS services will work, and to set up a
timeline for when the finished studies can be expected.
Officials at a recent joint meeting of local emergency response providers agreed to draft a memorandum of understanding to establish how the process of studying the viability of regionalizing fire and EMS services will work, and to set up a timeline for when the finished studies can be expected.
But that timeline is still unclear, and Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage said if it takes more than two years for CalFire, the county fire district and the South County fire district to establish the studies then it might be too late.
A joint services committee consisting of Gage and elected officials from the cities of Morgan Hill and Gilroy, and members of the South County Fire District board of commissioners met Thursday to continue discussing, among other things, the possibility of combining the local region into one fire district.
Currently, South County is served by three different agencies, with the city of Morgan Hill contracting with the Santa Clara County Fire Department for fire and emergency medical services. Unincorporated areas including San Martin are in the South Santa Clara County Fire District, which contracts with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection or CalFire. And the city of Gilroy has its own municipal fire department.
Discussions have been underway for several years about eventually incorporating Morgan Hill, Gilroy and the surrounding unincorporated areas into one fire district that would be served by a single department.
“You’ll have to look at regionalization in the future because as the cities grow, they get closer together,” said Gage, noting that a single fire district for the entire South County region would likely be cheaper in the long run.
And that will be the focus of a study to be conducted at some point after the joint services committee receives the memorandum of understanding outlining the process. The memorandum is due in about five weeks.
Earlier this year, Morgan Hill officials began looking at different options to save money on fire services without compromising the quality of service as a way to balance the budget.
One way they have considered doing that is to annex the city into the County fire district, essentially relinquishing all control it currently has over fire services to the SCCFD. City Manager Ed Tewes has said this annexation could save the city up to $700,000.
Also under this option, the services would be funded by property tax revenues, according to general discussion at Thursday’s meeting.
“The theory behind annexation is the fire department would capture growth in property tax revenues to fund incremental enhancements in services, with the goal of establishing a third station (in Morgan Hill), which would be supported by a dedicated property tax stream,” said Don Jarvis, Deputy Chief of SCCFD.
The city currently staffs two fire stations, and has long wanted to add a third one.
Jarvis said the revenues from such an arrangement could equal expenditures after about the third year. A third Morgan Hill station, fully staffed to meet current expectations of service, could be paid for by the 13th year, Jarvis added.
However, a more thorough study taking into account more updated information on the recent volume of service calls, recent growth, and the availability of other infrastructure such as roads will be needed to make a more accurate determination of the cost and quality of annexation and other options.
