Irvine and Orange County Fire Authority will stay together, under $50 million agreement
A potentially disruptive split has been averted: Irvine will not leave the Orange County Fire Authority, now that both have agreed to a $50 million deal to give the city what officials consider a fairer share of the public safety agency’s resources.
Irvine gave notice last year that in 2020 it might leave the authority, which serves 1.8 million people in 23 cities and unincorporated parts of the county. City leaders were frustrated by a funding formula that sees Irvine taxpayers contributing about 20 percent of the agency’s roughly $390 million annual budget.
In order to stay, Irvine wanted a joint police and fire training center, stepped-up fire service in the city and a faster pay-down of pension liability for OCFA employees. The agreement –approved by the Irvine City Council on Tuesday, April 9, and by OCFA’s board March 28 – does those things and several others. Irvine’s financial contribution to the agency, based on property taxes, remains the same.
While Irvine officials are pleased with the outcome, “It was a very frustrating process over the last four years,” Mayor Christina Shea said. “We thought we just needed to get more benefit for our residents because we pay so much into the authority, more than a majority of cities.”
Under the deal, the authority will build a training center in Irvine, likely at the Orange County Great Park, that firefighters and Irvine police can use. OCFA also will pay for amplifiers that improve radio communications, a public safety drone program, and up to $2 million a year to help reduce pension debt. Over the next 11 years, the agreement is expected to cost $50 million.
Other previously discussed items, including a new fire station in the Irvine Business Center and beefed-up staffing for existing stations and equipment, can go forward now that the contract dispute has been resolved, Irvine City Manager John Russo told the council.
When the city gave notice it planned to leave, it lost its seat on the authority’s board of directors, but will regain the seat with the new agreement in place.
Authority Chief Brian Fennessey said that part of his job is to see to his agency’s financial health, which could have taken a serious hit had Irvine left, but he was especially worried about how OCFA would have operated with a big hole in the middle of its service area.
“We don’t have to worry about that again,” he said. “I just can’t imagine the OCFA without Irvine being a part.”