Council restores $50,000 to avoid fire apparatus brownout; third-ambulance pilot left for further review

Auburn City Councilors signaled consensus at an April 15 budget workshop to restore $50,000 to the public-safety budget so the city would not take a fire apparatus out of service at times this year, a move councilors said would preserve baseline emergency response capacity.

Why it matters: Councilors framed the restoration as protecting public safety levels rather than expanding services. Fire leadership told the council that reducing apparatus availability would lower response capacity and that maintaining baseline staffing should take precedence over pilot expansion.

Details of the discussion: The fire chief said maintaining current service levels "would absolutely take precedent" over augmenting staffing to pilot a third ambulance during peak hours. He described the pilot as a data-gathering effort begun in March to staff a third ambulance 40 hours a week during peak demand, and said continuing the pilot would help the department evaluate whether shifting to longer-term staffing is warranted. The chief cautioned that taking an engine or other apparatus out of service would "drop us below response levels that the department hasn't seen in 3 decades."

Council response and next steps: Several councilors said they supported restoring the $50,000 so the city would not reduce the number of days an apparatus is in service; some members favored keeping the pilot in place, while others asked the manager and chief to return to the April 17 workshop with scenarios that scale the pilot (for example, fewer hours per week) so the council could weigh costs and operational impacts. Councilor Walker said he supported a continuation of the pilot at the amount the chief deemed appropriate but opposed taking apparatus offline: "I support having the third 1 with with whatever time the chief feels that is the right amount to put there... but I don't want an apparatus taken out of service."

Fiscal effect: Restoring the $50,000 changed the municipal operational percentage slightly in the manager's model; the manager and staff said they would provide Thursday's workshop with updated scenarios showing the budget effect of (a) restoring only the apparatus funding, (b) restoring apparatus funding plus some ambulance hours, or (c) both restorations and different hour levels for the pilot.

Operational note: The chief described the pilot as staffed via overtime to limit long-term commitments while data are collected; he said the pilot's estimated net cost assumed some recovered revenue from calls that would otherwise go to mutual-aid agencies during peak hours. The council asked the manager and chief to present multiple funding/hour scenarios for the pilot at the next meeting so members could choose a level consistent with both public-safety needs and budget constraints.