Facing a $1 million budget deficit, the City of Mountain View, CA (population 74,066) is following the recommendations of its Police and Fire Chiefs to consolidate administrative services and forge cooperative departments.
“We’ve been doing some administrative consolidation for awhile, for instance, the two chiefs share an administrative assistant, but now we are really looking at combining systems such as IT and dispatch,” said Dan Rich, City Manager.
Rich went on to congratulate the Police Chief, Scott Vermeer and Fire Chief, Bradley Wardle for developing the collaboration plan, which should save about $100k annually.
Details of the plan can be found here as part of the new city budget documents
An outline of the plan discusses restructuring organizations in both departments to create a new Police and Fire Support Services Division responsible for:
- Fiscal Services- budget, payroll, facilities, grants
- Administrative Support – front office greeting, phones, clerical support, etc.
- Public Safety Systems – support of PD/FD CAD, MDTs
- Public Safety 911 Center – 911 answering, police/fire/emergency medical dispatch
- Professional Standards Unit – Upon assignment from the Police Captain or Deputy Fire Chief this unit will conduct personnel investigations, audits and coordinate
City Manager Rich said that while some positions will be eliminated, new higher paying positions such as Deputy Fire Chief and Police Captain will be added in order to handle new responsibilities.