Milpitas Fire Department*

It is extremely costly to equip a fire department for only the occasional fire response; the County and fifteen towns/cities have not been proactive in challenging fire departments to adopt changes that are more cost effective and that better serve their communities. Further, unions are more interested in job preservation than in providing the right mixture of capabilities at a reasonable cost, using scare tactics to influence the public and fostering firefighter unwillingness to collaborate with EMS. The Milpitas Fire Department totally disagrees with this finding. Since the early 1960's, the Milpitas Fire Department and other towns/cities have been represented by their fire chiefs through membership in the Santa Clara County Fire Chiefs Association and its various subgroups. Since inception, the Association has worked to address a wide range of fire service issues to identify and implement changes that are more cost effective and better serve the needs of the communities throughout Santa Clara County. Together, the fire chiefs develop and oversee programs dedicated to the continued improvement and welfare of Santa Clara County fire services to meet their stated goals and objectives to include: Review of legislative developments while providing input through their elected representatives and professional affiliations. Serves as the executive advisory body to the Mission College Fire Science program. Work collaboratively with the Santa Clara County Emergency Medical Care • Committee. Support and encourage uniformity in training, delivery of service, fire and • hazardous materials codes and ordinances, and operational policies and practices. Function as a chapter of California Fire Chiefs Association. Elect a Fire and Rescue Mutual Aid Coordinator to manage provision of local and ٠ statewide mutual aid on behalf of all of the fire agencies in Santa Clara County. Instrumental in the formation and continued support of specialized regional teams for response to hazardous material incidents, technical rescues and potential terrorist attacks. Created and support regional incident management/support teams comprised of chief officers from every agency and discipline in Santa Clara County. While each agency and fire chief enjoy a different relationship with their labor organizations, the Milpitas Fire Department continues to have a cooperative and collaborative relationship with Local 1699. The Milpitas Fire Command Staff has initiated the formal labor/management meeting process which includes the union's executive board to address issues, clarify language, and propose changes to the organization's rules, regulations and policies.

Based on SCC's fluctuating demand for emergency services, contractually based minimum staffing requirements are not warranted and hinder fire chiefs in effectively managing firefighter staffing to meet time of day, day of week, season of year demand. This wastes money and may drive station closure as budgets continue to erode. The MFD has contractually bound minimum staffing requirements per current MOU which is set to expire in Dec. 2012. Current minimum staffing levels include three person staffing on all front line apparatus (Truck/USAR 1, E1, E2, E3, T4) for a total of 15 per shift. The MFD minimum staffing is a component of the MOU between the Milpitas Fire Department and the International Association of Firefighters Local 1699. This MOU component will be opened for future discussion when the current contract expires Dec. 31, 2012

Whether the emergency responder is a firefighter – paramedic or an EMS paramedic matters little to the person with the medical emergency; using firefighter-paramedics in firefighting equipment as first responders to all non-police emergencies is unnecessarily costly when less expensive paramedics on ambulances possess the skills needed to address the 96% of calls that are not fire related. MFD is not aware of the call analysis or any studies which identify that 96% of calls that are non-fire related can be handled by paramedics on an ambulance. This finding lacks sufficient detail to fully address the issues to which it refers. Table 2 in the Grand jury report indicates that approximately 4% of calls are for fires, 70% of calls are for emergency medical service, and 26% of calls are for "other" – a classification that includes rescues, hazardous material responses, alarm activations, and a number of other types of calls for service. The assertion that "less expensive paramedics on ambulances possess the skills needed to address the 96% of calls that are not fire related" does not stand up to scrutiny. Paramedics on ambulances would not posses the skills, nor the equipment, to deal with the 26% of calls involving technical rescues, hazardous materials releases, or even fire alarm activations. Furthermore, an undetermined percentage of medical emergencies would not have their emergency medical need met by paramedics on ambulances. The response to many emergency medical services calls require additional personnel just for lifting, carrying, performing CPR, patient treatment on scene, patient treatment while en- route to a facility, victim extrication, patient packaging and loading. To properly address the issue, one must weigh several factors and consider cost of any given service against the operational benefit. The cost effectiveness and operational efficiency of an emergency medical system which relies solely upon paramedics assigned to ambulances servicing all of Santa Clara County would require a substantial amount of study.

Emergency callers care less about seeing their city/town name on the equipment door than receiving timely assistance when needed, and a wide variety of consolidation opportunities offer cities ways to deliver emergency response services at a reduced cost and without compromising service response times. While the premise of this statement is true, the City of Milpitas takes great pride in its public safety entities and how these entities (MFD and MPD) are tied to the community identity. The MFD has been involved in regional service delivery discussions and has executed automatic aid agreements with the City of San Jose Fire and mutual aid agreements with the City of Fremont Fire. Although there has been no discussion regarding boundary drops, both agreements are currently under review for revisions and upgrades. Recent progress is being made with the development of a "joint" Assistance for Firefighting Grant (AFG) between the Milpitas Fire Department and the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety. This technology upgrade grant process (portable, mobile and base radios) is led in part by the Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability Authority (SVRIA). As the Milpitas Fire Department transitions to fire accreditation, the department will embrace a non-traditional enterprise philosophy. Consolidations, contracts, customer services, regional approaches and public/private partnerships are all strategic approaches that will be considered to enhance emergency service delivery.