Fire Dept. Cuts Safety Monitors, Battalion Chiefs to Balance Budget

In response to a $6.9-million budget shortfall, the Los Angeles City Fire Department has severely reduced the number of inspectors assigned to monitor safety in public institutions including hospitals, schools, film sets and factories.

In addition, the ranks of battalion chiefs were cut from 16 to 14, which the department estimated will increase the length of time it takes for supervisors to arrive on the scene of an emergency by five to 10 minutes.

Vacant battalion chief positions in Glassell Park and San Pedro will remain unfilled, according to Fire Department spokesman Deputy Chief Ralph Ramirez. Battalion chiefs generally supervise six to eight fire stations and oversee command post operations at the sites of emergencies and disasters, he said.

“It is almost certainly going to have an impact,” said Fire Marshal and Deputy Chief Jimmy Hill, who oversees the fire prevention bureau, where the inspectors work. “But I think that with the people I have I can still manage and keep a high degree of public safety.”

As of Sunday, 43 out of 175 inspectors were ordered to report for duty as firefighters, while their colleagues prepared to deal with staffs that in some areas had been cut in half.

In the film inspection unit, for example, the number of inspectors was reduced from six to three, a move that firefighters and movie producers say could lead to tragedies like the death of a crew member in San Bernardino County on a Disney set last week. The cutback has left just three inspectors to examine all of the film and television sets in Los Angeles--3,500 set locations were inspected last year--and the same three firefighters must also process all permits for use of pyrotechnics, helicopters and tents.

Similarly, the unit that inspects schools and churches was cut from six people to three, and industrial inspectors were reduced from 31 to 13.

“We don’t particularly like it, but there doesn’t seem to be any other way to resolve how we’re going to take care of this budget issue,” said Battalion Chief Mike Bowers, who supervises the film, school and church inspectors. “My concerns are for public safety.”

The transfers, according to Hill and others, are meant to be temporary. The department has promised to return the inspectors to their old jobs when the next fiscal year begins in July.

The Fire Department cuts were made as part of the city’s response to a midyear budget audit that showed an overall shortfall of $39.5 million in several departments, including Airport, Recreation and Parks, and Planning. The deficit amounts to about 1% of the city’s $2.6-billion budget. Much of it was made up by extra appropriations by the City Council.

The Fire Department ran a similar deficit last year, which was made up by the City Council, a city auditor said.