So why did you give unanimous approval to a 3% base raise?

It is strange that the Board does not know what the raises are but approved them. This was first discussed last month so there has been an additional period of time to get the staff report correct. The Board thinks it is 3%, they Admin officer says 5%, the Board does not know how the % is calculated. I suppose we need a new Board who can get control of the situation.

It is unbelievable that someone would be so incompetent to approve something they did not understand.

It's the Bernstein show. Why did he vote for the pay raise. A lot of miss communication and his re election circus. What public agency gets a 98.5 % overall satisfaction rating? Looks like everyone thinks the Fire Department is doing a good job.

Staffocracy

The majority of MPFPD's annual budget comes from a fixed portion of property tax from properties that are within the District's service area. MPFPD's budget, in essence, rises with rising home prices. With rising budgets, MPFPD has put those funds to use. While we all benefit from, and are extremely appreciative of the excellent job that our firefighters do, the concern expressed by many is that we have a gold-plated fire protection district, while many of our other important public services are rusting from deficient funding.

Recent MPFPD activity shows a trend of capital investments: updating and rebuilding fire houses, purchasing new fire equipment, acquiring properties in anticipation of future expansion. This article highlights again that firefight compensation is an issue, and apparently and one that nobody seems to fully understand.

From and outsider's perspective, it looks like MPFPD is running out of way to spend money. As I'm sure their are rules from accumulating reserves, it will be interesting to see what new ways they came up with to spend.

I can't help but think that there must be a better way to allocate funding between vital city and community services. For too long, we have some Districts (like MPFPD) which receive an abundance of funding somewhat automatically, while at the same time we have the our schools forever on the brink of teacher layoffs.

The Fire Board is totally out-of-control reveling in spending as they wish, operating with impunity with leadership that created its own fiefdom, and a Board that lacks common sense and the guts to do proper oversight. Perhaps its time for the County to investigate Fire Board leadership and operations and clean out the swamp.

The Fire District has had balance budgets for every year in the last decade, responds within 7 minutes to incident 93% of the time and 98.5% of the District residents who were surveyed were satisfied with level of service provided by the Fire District.

Can any other local unit of government match those performance measures?

@Peter Carpenter. Yes, yes, yes. This is exactly my point. I'll exaggerate a bit for effect, but our public agencies look something like this:

MPFPD: A+++ (great, but we didn't ask for A+++)
Agency 1 B-
Agency 2 B+
Agency 3 D-
Agency 4 C
Agency 5 C+

I think much of the sentiment expressed by Almanac commenters, is we should strive for better balance, but the financing/budgeting rules don't allow it.

I don't get it. If I go to my board with a half baked spending plan with no supporting numbers, I'd probably leave worried about my job.

Instead the board says "we don't understand but do it anyway" Huh? The correct answer is either:

a) postpone the vote pending more information
b) vote NO and let management come back with more info next time.

Not only that but guessing that the average total pay increase is 5%. Are you kidding? Who gets that kind of salary increase ACROSS THE BOARD? We're not talking about promotions here. This is for everyone. And no, it's not COLA. Or at least if it is, it's using the wrong numbers since inflation is running about half that.

So Peter, if they don't get the 3% raise they're all going to work slower and take more time to respond?

You can always count on [part deleted - please make your point without negative characterizations] to offer half-baked justification for the exorbitant salaries and spending the Fire Board wallows in. We don't have enough fires in their jurisdiction to use even half the people the Fire Board employs. This is a out-of-control spending boondoggle - pure and simple.

Reslice the Pie is 100% correct.

The District's property tax revenues exceed its operating and capital improvement expenses collects by millions of dollars per year. It is very lucky to have such a healthy (some might say wealthy) tax base. And unlike the City and school districts, fire districts do not have to worry about Sacramento raiding its property tax increment to balance the state budget during less prosperous years. So, congratulations to the Fire Chief and Board for finding a way to do so much with...so much.

Funny how they seem to forget the exorbitant pay that the Almanac reported earlier this year and go ahead and give raises. Any raises should have been tied to reducing over time pay. The 3% base pay raise translated into a 4 1/2% to 6% increase on all that overtime.

I agree it is time to re-slice the pie. Let's face it, it is easy to balance a budget when you are given too much money.

[Post removed; including a link to another website is OK if you're doing so to support your own comments, but not as a stand-alone link.]