The primary Fire Suppression units of the San Francisco Fire Department are deployed at a total of 42 firehouses in the City, including one firehouse located on Treasure Island. Each firehouse is assigned one engine company (known as an "engine" or "pumper"). Nineteen of the firehouses are assigned an aerial ladder truck (known as a "truck"), and Fire Station Numbers One and Seven are each assigned a Heavy Rescue Squad. In addition, various Fire Department assets, such as the fireboats, a Hazardous Materials Unit, and hose tenders, are assigned to disparate firehouse locations in the City.

The foregoing units are organized into 10 battalions and three divisions, each of which is located in one of the City firehouses. Battalion Chiefs, who work 24-hour shifts, command each battalion on a daily basis. An Assistant Deputy Chief, who works one of the three 24-hour shifts, commands each of the three divisions. Assistant Chiefs work the other two 24-hour shifts. All Fire Suppression units, as well as all Emergency Medical Service (EMS) units discussed below, report to the Deputy Chief for Operations, who is the Fire Department"s second-in-command to the Department Chief.

Exhibit 2.1.1 on the following page is an organization chart of Fire Department Operations. The organizational chart includes the major fire suppression units (engines, trucks, rescue units, and fireboats) assigned to battalions, battalion assignments to divisions, division locations, (i.e., Stations 13, 5, and 7), and the total number of incidents occurring in each division"s area of responsibility during FY 1999-00.

The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) units of the San Francisco Fire Department are deployed on the following basis: 1) 20 Advanced Life Services (ALS) ambulances stationed at various firehouses, each staffed by two Firefighter/Paramedics, 2) one or two ambulances, depending on the availability of personnel, which are staffed by two Paramedics each and which operate primarily in the downtown area; and, 3) four Paramedic Rescue Captains, who are each strategically stationed at a different firehouse.

In addition to the foregoing, six of the 42 engine companies are each staffed with a Firefighter/Paramedic as a part of the regular complement of one officer and three firefighters. These engine companies are known as Advanced Life Services (ALS) engines, and each has the full medical services capabilities of ambulances, with the exceptions of transport capability and certain drugs.

Workloads Statistics and Daily Staffing

The number and severity of fires in San Francisco has declined over the past 35 years, as has been the experience in cities throughout the country. Various articles attribute the decline primarily to enhanced fire prevention measures, such as more stringent building code requirements. Shown in Table 2.1.1 are fire and fire-related data published by the San Francisco Fire Department. The data were extracted from annual reports for every fifth fiscal year from FY 1965-66 to FY 1995-96, except that we used FY 1969-70 in the place of FY 1970-71 because the FY 1970-71 Annual Report was missing. The FY 1999-00 data were taken from Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) data maintained by the Fire Department.

Exhibit 2.1.1
San Francisco Fire Department
Organization Chart October 2001

As shown in Table 2.1.1, there was a noticeable increase in Non-Fire Emergencies in FY 1999-00, due primarily to the 1997 merger of EMS with Fire services. Previously, EMS service requests were not included in the Fire Department"s activity statistics.

Significantly, the total number of fires decreased by 7,244 between FY 1969-70 and FY 1999-00, from 10,994 to 3,750, which represents a 65.9 percent decrease. Furthermore, in the same time period, the number of Major Alarms decreased by 111, from 176 to 65, which represents a 63.1 percent decrease.

Table 2.1.1
Workload Statistics and Fire Fatalities
Fiscal Years 1965-66 through 1999-00

* Extrapolated from actual data for the first nine months of FY 1999-00, which was the period preceding cutover to the current CAD system.

"Minimum daily staffing" of 354 positions is required to provide continuous, 24-hour per day fire suppression/EMS services at the levels currently approved by the Board of Supervisors and included in the MOU with the Department"s firefighters. The positions are filled on a daily basis by three rotating shifts (A, B, and C), each consisting of more than 400 uniformed members of the Fire Department in order to allow for absences. Such "minimum daily staffing" does not include staffing for San Francisco International Airport, which is separately funded by the Airport, or for the daily requirements of the Emergency Communications Center, which for Fire/EMS Dispatch are currently performed by uniformed members of the Fire Department.

The San Francisco Fire Department has developed a model for determining the required staffing and associated costs for "minimum daily staffing," based on a 48-hour workweek. In general, 3.51 full-time equivalent positions (FTE) are required to staff each 24-hour "minimum daily staffing" position, not including an additional factor for vacations, sick pay, disability leaves, etc. In order to provide for such absences, the Fire Department uses a 25 percent factor, which results in a staffing requirement of 4.39 FTE, based on a 48-hour workweek (3.51 FTEs per 24-hour staffing post, multiplied by a relief factor of 1.25).

Minimum daily staffing requirements are provided in the following table:

Table 2.1.2
San Francisco Fire Department
Fire Suppression/ EMS Minimum Daily Staffing

Suppression and EMS Workload

There is a significant difference in the average unit utilization time 1 of suppression units and medical units, as shown in Table 2.1.3 on the following page. Whereas the average unit utilization time for suppression units per 24-hour shift ranges from 27 minutes and 16 seconds for Division Chiefs to one hour and 43 minutes for Rescue Squads, the average unit utilization time for paramedic ambulances is seven hours and 15 minutes, and for Rescue Captains (medical) two hours and nine minutes. However, firefighting and utilization factors, although a component of total workload and an indicator of where efficiencies might be achieved, do not provide a complete representation of services provided.

Table 2.1.3
Workload Comparisons
FY 1999-00 Averages

Fire Suppression Divisions

Within fire suppression, there is a large workload disparity between highly active units and units that are less active. As shown at the bottom of Table 2.1.4, the combined "Average No. Dispatches per Day," and number of incidents in the "First Due Geographical Areas," of Engine 1 and Engine 3, located in and on the periphery of the downtown area, exceed those totals for Engines 28, 29, 48, 16, 12, 34, 20, 24, 39, and 9 combined. Furthermore, the combined average "unit utilization time" for Engine 1 and Engine 3 is less than the combined average for the ten engine companies cited by only a little more than one hour.

The Budget Analyst is not recommending that any of the less active stations be closed. The reason is that regardless of the level of activity of a fire station, a fire/rescue unit should be located within a specified response time area to provide emergency services. The Budget Analyst has not performed a detailed analysis of the stationing of all fire/rescue units within the City; this would entail extensive studies that would consider the effects of terrain and road networks.

However, we do recommend that the Fire Department carefully review and evaluate what type of Fire/EMS unit or units should be stationed at all of its fire stations, and what type of incidents those units should respond to, in order to increase the level of service that the Department can provide to the City.

Replace Three 24-Hour Division Chiefs with a Single Watch Commander

As previously stated and as displayed in Exhibit 2.1.1, fire suppression units are organized into ten battalions, each of which is assigned to one of three geographically based divisions. Currently, "minimum daily staffing" includes three Division Chiefs above the 10 Battalion Chiefs on a 24-hour basis, as shown in Table 2.1.4. The Budget Analyst performed a survey of other large fire/rescue departments in the State of California for the purpose of obtaining information on a number of operational factors, including the number of Division Chiefs who are designated "Watch Commander" or" Duty Deputy" in some jurisdictions, occupying a command level above Battalion Chiefs on a 24-hour basis. The results are shown in the column titled "Division Chiefs" in Table 2.1.5 below.

Of the eight departments included in the survey, only Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco have Chief Officers above the Battalion Chief level-of-command: Los Angeles and San Francisco each have three Division Chiefs, and Sacramento has a single Chief Officer above the Battalion Chief level-of-command on a 24-hour basis.

As shown in Table 2.1.5, Los Angeles, which exceeds San Francisco"s geographical area by a factor of 9.5, and exceeds the City"s population by approximately three million, or a factor of 4.7, has the same number of divisions as the City does.

During exit conferences, the Department stated that the geographical factors of the City, as well as the age and character of the building stock in San Francisco, make comparisons with other California jurisdictions questionable. Instead, the Department offered three other jurisdictions as alternatives for comparison: Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia, based on population density figures and physical similarities to San Francisco.

While population density is certainly a relevant factor to consider in any analysis of command staffing needs, it is not the only factor. To consider the alternatives presented by the Department, we requested additional information related to the organization structure of the jurisdictions, the number of fire incidents and "greater alarms" occurring within the jurisdiction in the most recent fiscal year, and a comparison of the duties and responsibilities of the Division Chief and Battalion Chief levels of command within each. The Department had not collected any of this information during the month between the date that the Budget Analyst issued the draft report to the Department and the date of the exit conference, and was only able to collect activity data for these jurisdictions during the week between the exit conference and submittal of its response. Other information was not available from the Department at the time this report was published.

Table 2.1.4
Fire Suppression Unit Statistics

Table 2.1.5
Assignment Practices of 24-hour Division Chiefs
In Other Large California Jurisdictions

The activity data for the three jurisdictions suggested by the Department for comparison shows that each has a greater number of fire related incidents than does San Francisco. In 1999-2000, San Francisco had a total of 104,272 total alarms, of which 30,827 were fire related. The Department reports that 65 were greater alarms. Chicago reportedly had 213,524 total alarms in 1999-2000, more than double the number in San Francisco while covering nearly five times the square miles as is covered by the San Francisco Fire Department. Boston and Philadelphia had 78,826 (2.6 times the number in San Francisco) and 61,054 (2.0 times the number in San Francisco) fire related alarms, respectively. The Department was unable to confirm the greater alarm activity in any of these jurisdictions.

We recognize that the comparison of command staffing utilized in other jurisdictions is a complex matter that requires the consideration of a number of variables. Yet the Department has not inventoried these variables or conducted analysis which would provide suitable information for making such a determination. When asked about whether such an analysis could be conducted by the Department, the Chief indicated that it would be performed as part of his budanalyst of the organization, which is presently being conducted. We encourage the Chief to include such an analysis in his organizational budanalyst, and provide the report to the Fire Commission and Board of Supervisors prior to budget deliberations for FY 2002-03. At a minimum, such an analysis should consider:

· The current duties and responsibilities of command staff, compared with similar classifications of personnel in other comparable jurisdictions;

· The current utilization time for command staff;

· The population density of the City, and the geographical characteristics of the City"s terrain and building stock;

· The fire command practices and organizational factors which affect command response in other jurisdictions, including some in California, as well as others which the Department considers the most similar to San Francisco;

· Statistical analysis of the probability of major fire events occurring simultaneously in the City (while descriptions of individual occurrences are interesting, they are meaningless without an objective budanalyst of alarm activity and distribution patterns); and,

· Alternative protocols which could be employed during major disasters, or when simultaneous catastrophic events occur.

The benefits of such an analysis could be substantial. In addition to providing the Department with a basis for defining its command structure, it would provide an opportunity to reassess command response criteria and procedures. Further, the Department could potentially identify significant cost savings in high and mid-level management positions within the Department.

The remainder of this section provides the Budget Analyst"s budanalyst of the fire command structure based on interviews with current and previous command staff, operational observations, analysis of utilization times for command personnel, and an budanalyst of the organizational structures which exist in other jurisdictions within California. As will be demonstrated with this analysis, the Department could potentially reduce mid-management staffing with no reduction in frontline fire suppression personnel, resulting in significant cost savings for the City.

Single, 24-Hour Watch Commander

The statistics shown below in Table 2.1.6 have been extracted from Table 2.1.4, "Fire Suppression Unit Statistics." As shown, in FY 1999-00 the combined average "unit utilization time" for the three Division Chiefs was one hour, 22 minutes, and the combined "average number of dispatches per day" was 4.2. We have been advised that Division Chiefs will often go back "In Service," thus ending "Unit Utilization Time" at an incident even though they continue to perform duties at the incident. The reason for this practice, we have been advised, is that Division Chiefs desire to be "In Service" as soon as possible when finishing up duties at an incident in order to be available for any forthcoming incident

Table 2.1.6

Division Chief Statistics

Nonetheless, replacing the three, 24-hour, Division Chief command level with a single "Watch Commander," who would continue to be provided with a Chief"s Aide, would be a more effective use of resources. Based on FY 1999-00 workload statistics, on an average 24-hour shift, a Watch Commander would be dispatched to 4.2 incidents that would consume a total of approximately one hour, 22 minutes.

The single Watch Commander, or as is the case currently with the three Division Chiefs, would not be "on his or her own" concerning the management of very serious or catastrophic incidents. In the instance of a serious incident, the Emergency Communications Center alerts the Chief of Department (CD1), the Operations Chief (CD2), the Chief of Administration (CD3), and a list of other persons in emergency response positions, concerning the incident. CD1 is provided a Chief"s Aide on a 24-hour basis. CD2 is required to live in the City and is normally available for duty. In the instance of a serious incident, the highest priority is to get service-delivery units to the scene immediately, including officers to implement the Incident Command System. However, in instances of very serious incidents, other Chief Officers, including the highest-ranking Chief Officers of the Fire Department, would be available for service at the incident.

Based on our analysis and evaluation of the existing unit deployments and workloads and the best use of resources, we recommend that the Department consider replacing the current deployment of three Division Chiefs with a single "Watch Commander" or "Duty Deputy."

Replacing three Division Chiefs with a single "Watch Commander" or "Duty Deputy" would produce salary and benefit savings of approximately $1,328,853 in Assistant Chief costs, and approximately $807,101 in Chief"s Operator costs, for a total savings of $2,135,954, as shown below.

*Delete 7 of 11 H-50 positions and reduce Overtime by $269,403

Two, 40-hour Workweek Division Commanders

According to the Fire Department Annual Reports we reviewed, the San Francisco Fire Department has functioned with three divisions from at least FY 1965-66, the earliest Annual Report we obtained, except for the period of 1992 until 1997, when the Department functioned with two divisions, reportedly because of budget restrictions. The Budget Analyst has requested that the Fire Department provide an analysis and evaluation of any mission degradation experienced during the two-division deployment period. As of the writing of this report, the Department has not advised us of any mission degradation experienced as a result of the two-division deployment.

Additional savings in the amount of $152,828 can be achieved, and more importantly, enhanced operations can be realized, by reducing the number of divisions by one, from three to two, and by staffing the two divisions with two Division Commanders on regular 40-hour per week staff duty working as full-time Division Commanders. The two Division Commanders would not be assigned Chief"s Operators.

The advantages of having a single Division Commander in charge of each Division on a 40-hour workweek are many, and include the following:

· Enhanced control of all Division operations, including planning and training

· More consistent enforcement of disciplinary standards

· Assigned responsibility for the operations of the entire Division

· Potential for "healthy" competition between the two divisions

· Expertise developed in budgeting and financial controls

· Enhanced control of sick pay, trades, time coming

To be effective, the Division Commanders would each require staff officers, administrative assistants, and secretarial assistance. For what we estimate to be a time period of approximately three to five years, the Division Commanders would require significant staff assistance to conduct the necessary budanalysts and evaluations, write the plans and procedures, and then implement the changes that are needed to upgrade the Fire Department"s capabilities. Moreover, as evidenced by the nature of certain disciplinary cases, interviews with individual firefighters on the state of morale and esprit de corps within the Fire Department, and the horrendous website accusations and comments concerning all manner of individuals and operations within the Department, the Fire Department is in great need of strong and dedicated leadership and management that only fulltime leaders and managers who are not assigned to firehouses, can provide.

As a part of this management audit, the Fire Department completed a series of questionnaires covering various topics such as "Fire Suppression Operations," "Goals and Objectives," and "budanalyst and Planning." Attachment 2.1.1 to this report contains the Department"s responses to certain of those questionnaires. Unless otherwise indicated in the questionnaire, the Department"s response to each of the questions was "No." A reading of the topics covered shows that the Fire Department capabilities are in serious need of improvement and that the Department needs to perform a significant amount of work to develop and document effective plans and procedures and then to implement those plans and procedures.

Transfer the Assignment Office Functions to the Division Commanders

The Bureau of Assignments, currently assigned to the Management Division, which the Budget Analyst is recommending be eliminated (Section 1.2), is responsible for ensuring that each "minimum daily staffing" position is filled daily and for performing a variety of personnel functions, including the following:

The Bureau of Assignments is staffed seven days per week. Permanent assignments to the Bureau include a Battalion Chief and three Lieutenants. However, those members are augmented with other personnel on an overtime basis with members from Fire Suppression or with members on Light Duty. The FY 2000-01 straight salary and overtime costs for personnel assigned to the Bureau are as follows:

Straight Time Salary Costs and Hours Expended

Salaries: $486,904 Hours Worked: 13,160 Average Hourly Rate: $37.00

Overtime Salary Costs and Hours Expended

Salaries: $343,070 Hours Worked: 6,399 Average Hourly Rate: $53.61

Total salaries, not including mandatory fringe benefits, totaled $829,974 for FY 2000-01, of which 41.3 percent were paid on an Overtime basis. In contrast, hours expended totaled 19,559, of which 32.7 percent were expended on an Overtime basis.

In the other fire departments that we surveyed, including the Phoenix Fire Department, the activities of scheduling members, balancing the staffing requirements, and other functions performed by the Bureau of Assignments are performed by Battalion Chiefs and other "minimum daily staffing" members, not by a separate Assignment Office.

In Section 1.2, we recommend that the Department transfer the Assignment Office to the Operations Division, reporting to CD2. In Section 2.3, we recommend that several of the existing Assignment Office positions be civilianized.

As an alternative, the Department may wish to consider transferring Assignment Office functions to the two Division Commanders. As a long term objective, the Department should evaluate whether the assignment function could be performed more economically by their staffs and other suppression personnel assigned to their divisions. In the long term, we generally believe the assignment function could be better integrated into operations, and need not be a fulltime task that consumes the resources currently expended.

Staffing for the Two Divisions

As previously stated, we think that the Division Commanders would require significant staff assistance for a period of three to five years. The Budget Analyst recommended list of positions, provided below, should be viewed as a guide to the staffing needed to perform the many tasks needed to improve the Fire Department.

Fire Suppression Battalions

As shown in Exhibit 2.1.1, the existing battalion configurations vary significantly in number of units assigned. For example, Battalion 2, which is irregularly shaped and bounded generally by O"Farrell on the North, Fillmore and Sanchez on the West, 18^th Street on the South, and by Jones Street, 7^th Street, and De Haro on the East, includes four suppression units. Battalion 7, located in the western part of the City, north of Lincoln Way and west of Stanyan, is also staffed with four units. On the other hand, Battalion 6, located generally in the center of the City, and Battalion 10, located in the southeast sector of the City, are each assigned eight fire suppression units.

The ten battalions vary significantly in the number of incidents to which they respond. As shown in Table 2.1.4, the average number of dispatches per day ranges from 1.5 to 7.6, and the average utilization factors range from 34 minutes and 25 seconds to one hour, 42 minutes and 34 seconds. Also, the Battalion Chief for Battalion 3 is currently located on Treasure Island, although that move was instituted subsequent to the Fiscal Year 1999-00 data shown in Table 2.1.4.

The statistics shown in Table 2.1.7 have been extracted from Table 2.1.4, "Fire Suppression Unit Statistics:" As shown, in FY 1999-00 the combined average "unit utilization time" for the 10 Battalion Chiefs was 10 hours, 46 minutes, 35 seconds, and the combined "average number of dispatches per day" was 37.5. As with Division Chiefs, we have been advised that Battalion Chiefs will often go back "In Service" thus ending "Unit Utilization Time" at an incident even though they continue to perform duties at the incident. As with the Division Chiefs, the reason for this practice, we have been advised, is that Battalion Chiefs desire to be "In Service" as soon as possible when finishing up duties at an incident in order to be available for any forthcoming incident.

Table 2.1.7

San Francisco Fire Department

Battalion Chief Utilization and Dispatch Statistics

Given the average combined "unit utilization time" and number of dispatches per day, as shown in Table 2.1.7, reducing the number of Battalion Chiefs from 10 to 6 would result in an average "unit utilization time" of one hour, 48 minutes, and an average of 6.25 dispatches per day, for each of the six Battalion Chiefs. Based on the FY 1999-00 statistics, Battalion 1 had an average "unit utilization time" of 1:42:34 and an average of 7.6 dispatches per day. Therefore, based on "unit utilization time" and "average number of dispatches per day," reducing the number of Battalion Chiefs by four (from ten to three) is within the workload of the busiest Battalion Chief.

The Incident Command System (ICS) described by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and as published in the Fire Department"s Incident Command Manual recommends a manageable span-of-control of between three and seven, with five being the optimum. The modular concept can be used to adapt the span-of-control to the needs of particular incidents, as shown in Attachment 2.1.2 of this report section, which is an excerpt of the Fire Department"s Incident Command Manual. As stated therein, "The ICS positions are filled from existing on-scene personnel. None of the positions have a pre-determined rank from which it must be filled. The individuals assigned to the position receive their authority from the position held." Attachment 2.1.2 also provides examples of incident command assignments, using a company officer as a Group Supervisor.

Based on current unit utilization factors, current staffing of Battalion Chiefs by other Fire Departments in the State, the significant variance in workloads between the battalions, the workloads that would result from reducing the number of Battalion Chiefs, the flexibility of the ICS to accommodate serious incidents, and the ability of higher ranking Chief Officers to assume command of serious incidents, the Budget Analyst recommends that the number of suppression battalions be reduced from ten to six. The savings generated would be approximately $3.35 million, as shown below, and the daily staffing requirement would be reduced by eight positions (four Battalion Chief positions and four Chief"s Aide positions).

Excess Battalion Chief Position

In the FY 2001-02 Budget, the Fire Department requested that a total of 11 uniformed positions be transferred from Support Services to Suppression. The positions were used primarily in Communications, which was subordinate to Support Services prior to the transfer of that function to the Emergency Communications Department. However, included in the requested transfer was one H40, Battalion Chief position that was previously used to oversee the fire station improvement and seismic upgrade program that is largely completed. The position is currently vacant. The Budget Analyst recommends that the H 40 Battalion Chief, position be deleted, realizing a total savings of $131,695 in salaries and mandatory fringe benefits.

Allocation of Fire Suppression and EMS Units

As shown in Table 2.1.1, the total number of alarms in FY 1999-00 was 104,272. Of that total, 73,445, or approximately 70.4 percent, were medical calls for assistance. However, the medical capabilities of the fire/rescue/EMS units responding to those calls do not reflect the reality that the preponderance of calls for assistance is of a medical nature. This situation is understandable, given that the Fire/EMS merger occurred only approximately four years ago. As a comparison of what a Fire/EMS allocation resembles in a fire department with a long-established EMS mission, the Budget Analyst tabulated a comparison of medical capabilities in the Phoenix Fire Department to such capabilities in the San Francisco Fire Department. The results of that tabulation are shown in Table 2.1.8 below.

As shown in Table 2.1.8, the largest disparity between the two fire departments is in the number and paramedic staffing of the Advanced Life Service (ALS) engine companies: The Phoenix Fire Department deploys a total of 41 ALS engines daily, each with a minimum of two paramedics, whereas the San Francisco Fire Department deploys six ALS engine companies, each with one paramedic. The disparity is significant.

Phoenix Fire/EMS Communications dispatches either an engine or a truck to every medical incident and every incident, whether medical, fire, or other type emergency, must include the dispatch of four members, as a safety precaution. For medical calls, the CAD algorithm fulfills the following requirements: 1) Manpower - a minimum of four members are dispatched to each incident; 2) BLS capability; 3) ALS capability; and 4) transport capability. ALS engines fulfill all but the transport requirement, and being staffed with a minimum of two firefighter/paramedics, provide a significant medical capability for a first responding unit.

The San Francisco Fire Department should undertake an evaluation of its force structure to better align that structure with its current mission. It is apparent that the City would be better served by a Fire Department with a higher percentage of paramedic/firefighters. Jurisdictions such as Phoenix have successfully attracted and retained, or trained and retained firefighter/paramedics, and the San Francisco Fire Department should be able to do the same.

Transfer the Special Operations Function

The EMS Special Operations Section oversees EMS operations for special or major events (such as large City celebrations, events involving dignitaries, or Level I or II disasters), coordinates transit emergency drills, coordinates the medical component of specialized rescue operations, and undertakes community education, public information, and specialized professional training programs.

Prior to July 1, 1997, the Fire Department did not have a Special Operations Section because mass events were handled by the Police Department and DPH paramedics. The Fire Department only became involved if a fire occurred. Consequently, the Special Operations Section acts as the de facto special events coordinator for the entire Fire Department in its new role as a multi-service/multi-emergency response agency.

Consequently, the EMS Special Operations Chief works directly with the Deputy Chief of Operations on many issues. While the medical coverage components of Special Operations plans for special or major events are approved by the EMS Chief or the Medical Director, the total package of Fire Department responses is approved by the Deputy Chief of Operations and then passed onto the Division and Battalion Chiefs who are responsible for operations of the day, with support from Special Operations Section staff. Furthermore, the Special Operations Section Chief works directly with the Deputy Chief of Operations on coordinating the Fire Department budgets for technical rescue, hazardous materials, cliff and water rescue, terrorist attacks, air and marine incidents, and special events.

The workload of the Classification H-33 Rescue Captain, Special Events is broken down as follows:

· 0.30 FTE on pre-planning for City-wide events.

· 0.20 FTE on operational briefing, interagency coordination (the Airport, BART, California Highway Patrol, CalTrans, Coast Guard, DPH, Department of Parking and Transport, MUNI, and the Police Department), allocation of apparatus, event management, and post-operation reports.

· 0.50 FTE on two special projects:

The Budget Analyst recommends that the Special Operations Section become a direct report to the Deputy Chief of Operations reflecting its role as a special operations coordinator for both fire suppression and EMS. Shifting the Special Operations Section out of the EMS Division and making it a direct report to the Deputy Chief of Operations would be budget neutral in FY 2001-02.

Table 2.1.8

Medical Capabilities of Responding Units

Phoenix compared to San Francisco

*A minimum of two Firefighter/Paramedics are assigned to Phoenix"s ALS Engines. One Firefighter/Paramedic is assigned to San Francisco"s ALS Engines.

Recapitulation of Costs and Savings3

In total, the City could save in excess of $4.2 million annually by implementing the recommendations contained in this section, with no reduction in firehouses or degradation of services. These recommendations, and associated savings, are summarized below.

Conclusion

To control emergency service operations on a 24-hour basis, the Fire Department has divided the City into three, geographically based divisions. Two divisions are assigned three battalions and the third division is assigned four battalions. Three Division Chiefs, and below the division level 10 Battalion Chiefs, command the Department"s 42 engines, 19 aerial trucks, 20 ambulances, two heavy rescue squads, the fire boat, and other emergency service units. Each Division Chief and each Battalion Chief is assigned a Chief"s Aide. In addition, the Chief of the Fire Department is assigned a Chief"s Aide on a 24-hour basis.

Based on a survey of other fire departments, a workload analysis of the San Francisco Fire Department, an analysis of the workloads that would result from reducing the number of suppression divisions and battalions, and a review of San Francisco Fire Department"s Incident Command System (ICS) Manual, the command structure should be reorganized to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Fire Department.

By adopting an alternative command structure that would include two divisions commanded by two regular workweek Division Chiefs, a single 24-hour shift Watch Commander, and six 24-hour shift Battalion Chiefs, the Department could operate more efficiently, effectively and economically, and potentially save over $4.2 million annually. The Fire Department should develop an analytical model based on statistical analysis of fire incidents, utilization rates for fire command staff and other factors which would better define division and battalion level staffing needs.

Recommendations

The Fire Commission should:

2.1.1 Conduct an analysis of the Department"s command structure, as discussed in this report.

Based on the analysis contained in this report, we believe the Chief of the Department should:

2.1.2 Consider reducing the number of Fire Suppression Divisions by one, from three to two, each commanded by a 40-hour workweek Division Commander.

2.1.3 Request adequate staff for each of the two Divisions to provide the planning, coordinating, directing, and controlling required to effectively deploy the Divisions.

2.1.4 Consider replacing the three 24-hour Division Chiefs with a single Watch Commander.

2.1.5 As a longer term operational objective, evaluate whether the assignment function could be performed more economically using suppression staff.

2.1.6 Delete one excess Battalion Chief Position.

2.1.7 Consider reducing the number of Fire Suppression Battalions from ten to six.

2.1.8 Place a high priority on correcting the shortcomings evidenced in the Fire Department"s responses to the questions listed in Attachment 2.1.1.

2.1.9 Evaluate its force structure in the light of its current mission so as to better align that structure with its current mission.

2.1.10 Transfer the Special Operations Section to the Deputy Chief of Operations.

Costs and Benefits

The Department would incur approximately $2.1 million annually for additional staff recommended in this report. However, this would be offset by annual savings amounting to approximately $6.4 million, resulting in net annual savings of approximately $4.2 million. In addition, the Department would achieve more effective command and control of fire suppression operations.

1 Unit utilization time is the amount of time that a unit is logged by the Computer-Aided-Dispatch (CAD) system as in-service, responding to an incident. It is the period of time recorded by the CAD between the time the unit is dispatched to an incident and the time that the unit becomes available to the system for another dispatch.

2 Designated "Watch Commander" or "Duty Deputy" In some jurisdictions.

3 The Budget Analyst has not applied the 4.39 FTE factor in all cases where we have recommended deleting positions because the Fire Department is not fully staffed on the basis of the 4.39 FTE factor in all cases, but uses Like Work, Like Pay or Overtime to fill certain positions, such as Division Chief positions.