By Carlos Alcalá
calcala@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Sep. 8, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 3B
The El Dorado Hills Fire District issued its response Wednesday to June's El Dorado grand jury report, challenging the idea that its employees were too highly paid for a low volume of fire calls.
The district's response – by administrators, board and the firefighters' association – disagrees with some of the grand jury's findings, but mostly points out ways in which the district has already done what the investigative body suggested.
"Almost 90 percent of those changes had occurred in the department before their report was released," said Dave Roberts, El Dorado Hills fire chief.
The district worked to bring salaries and benefits into line, and has eliminated unnecessary job categories mentioned by the grand jury, according to the response.
For example, the district's most recent contract "has modified the education incentive pay and changed it from a percentage of salary to a flat stipend," the response says.
The response also charges that data used by the grand jury for comparisons with other fire departments were inaccurate, relying on surveys instead of documents like bargaining agreements.
"We actually went out and got the hard facts," Roberts said.
The revisions show the district in a better light.
Roberts did not dispute the idea that the district needed a leaner budget.
"We knew we had to save some money," he said.
He did take issue with two assertions in the June report, including a finding that the district hadn't met its budget.
The grand jury report's first sentence reads: "A County official advised the Grand Jury that the El Dorado Halls Fire Department (EDHFD) was overspending its budget despite receiving a disproportionate amount of property tax revenue."
"The District has not overspent its budget in any year," countered the district in its response.
At times, it budgeted expenditures above the level of revenue, but that was planned spending, Roberts said.
"That's what we've been saving for," Roberts said.
The fire district is in a unique situation as a special district, which gives it revenue rates not enjoyed by other agencies in El Dorado County, something the grand jury suggested might be remedied.
"The Proposition 13 tax revenue allocation to EDHFD needs to be re-evaluated," the grand jury recommended.
The district disagrees.
"Our tax rate is something we're going to protect as long as we possibly can," Roberts said.
Steve Baker, last year's grand jury foreman, could not be reached Wednesday.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/08/3892649/el-dorado-hills-fire-department.html#ixzz1YSg4POXE
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