Fire department gets quicker
July 15, 2008
By Emily Keller
The Sammamish City Council will ask Eastside Fire and Rescue to limit the growth of its 2009 budget by no more than five percent over its 2008 budget of $17.1 million, council members said July 1.
“We should ask them to take a look at if there’s a way they can cut back in areas that are not salaries and benefits,” said City Manager Ben Yazici. “We’re in challenging times and we need to look at ways to streamline our budget.”
Councilwoman Kathy Huckabay* supported Yazici’s proposal to send a letter to the fire-fighting agency requesting that limit, which the Issaquah council also requested.
“I think it’s very conservative to ask them to cut five percent. I believe a recession is here and I think our community is really facing some difficult times. I think it’s time for us to cinch up our belt,” she said.
However, Councilman Mark Cross expressed some reservations about the idea, saying the council should study the agency’s budget in greater detail before making that request.
“Fuel costs have got to be killing them like they’re killing everyone else,” he said.
Council members discussed the suggested cap after listening to a presentation by the agency’s chief showing fire fighters met and exceeded response time goals in Sammamish and other urban areas in 2007.
The fire-fighting agency fulfilled nine of 14 measured response time goals last year and performed better in urban than rural areas, Fire Chief Lee Soptich told the council.
“It’s a little bit of a challenge. It’s been a juggling act to decide what’s right for each community,” Soptich said.
According to a 2007 performance report, the agency met nine of 16 goals to fulfill specific benchmarks 90 percent of the time. They failed in four categories. The remaining two pertain to hazardous materials incidents that did not occur last year.
The agency met its goals to dispatch units within eight minutes at volunteer stations, to arrive at the scene within 10 minutes in urban areas and to have an emergency medical unit there within nine minutes. They met their 19-minute travel time goal for arrival of an advanced life support unit 99 percent of the time.
However, the agency dispatched only 40 percent of its units at fully staffed stations within 90 seconds.
In rural areas, the agency met its 16-minute travel time standard 87 percent of the time – the goal is 90 percent. It met the 23-minute travel time standard for arrival of an advanced life support unit 83 percent of the time.
“We knew going in we wouldn’t perform as well in the rural areas, but we have in the urban ones,” Soptich said. “Unfortunately one of the only ways to improve response times is to have more responders.”
The agency met four of its goals 100 percent of the time. Those goals were to have technical rescue and wild land firefighting units arrive in 25 or 30 minutes in urban and rural areas respectively.
In addition to Sammamish and Issaquah, Eastside Fire and Rescue serves Carnation, North Bend, Preston, May Valley, Tiger Mountain and Wilderness Rim. The agency serves a population of 106,542 in a 220-square mile area.
Reporter Emily Keller can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or ekeller@isspress.com.
*This version corrects the identity of the Council Member as Kathy Huckabay.
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