No one wants the government to waste money. That makes the idea of consolidation, or doing away with unnecessary overhead, a popular one.
More often than not, the target of the consolidations are fire districts.
The latest merger idea comes from LAFCo, the San Mateo County Local Agency Formation Commission, a government body charged with periodically reviewing local government agencies for efficiency, organization and jurisdictional boundaries. This time around, the potential partners are the Woodside and Menlo Park fire protection districts. The districts are relatively close in size (31 square miles for Woodside and 27 for Menlo Park), although that is where just about any similarity ends.
For example, Menlo Park answers about 7,000 or more calls a year in Menlo Park, Atherton, East Palo Alto and nearby unincorporated areas, while Woodside attends to fewer than 2,000 calls in Woodside, Portola Valley, Ladera, Los Trancos Woods, and surrounding areas. Menlo Park serves about 95,000 residents, while Woodside’s sparsely populated hillsides are home to fewer than 14,000 people.
The budgets of the two districts are not even in the same league. Woodside expects to spend less than $12 million in the 2007-08 budget year. The lion’s share of that, almost $10 million, is for salaries and benefits. Menlo Park, a much larger department, will spend $28 million, of which $20 million will go to salary and benefits.
All of this might suggest that the Menlo district could absorb Woodside with little more than a hiccup, at least when you look at the two on paper. Certainly Menlo has experience managing more firefighters. And the LAFCo report says some high-level positions, such as one chief, a financial or administrative officer and support staff, and possibly a battalion chief, could be eliminated if the districts merged. In addition, such a district would be able to eliminate one board of directors and the associated costs.
But on the minus side, the Woodside fire officials already are less than enthusiastic about a merger. Longtime board member Peter Berger told the Almanac, “I don’t see a significant savings and I do see a degradation of service.”
In addition, he said that the two districts already practice an economy of scale by collaborating with other fire agencies on training, equipment maintenance and emergency medical service.
And countywide, fire agencies share dispatching services, enabling “dropped boundaries,” which means that the nearest fire engine will respond to a call, regardless of what town it is in.
Perhaps the biggest drawback to a merger is the likely centralization of administrative services at the Menlo Park headquarters, far away from Woodside and Portola Valley. Under the current system, residents get to know the firefighters and the board members, who are local residents. Such connections are important, especially in rural districts with difficult terrain.
In addition, engine crews in Woodside have years of experience in the sprawling district’s dry and hilly expanse. We wonder if a consolidated fire district would be able to keep such experienced personnel in their old district.
Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said he is open to studying a possible merger. At least at this time, it is on the table, although it’s unlikely to go far without Woodside’s cooperation.
Given Woodside’s already lean operation — only 3 percent of its budget goes to administration, compared with 13 percent for Menlo Park — it doesn’t seem worth the effort to consolidate these two very different districts. In this case, a merger just doesn’t fit.
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