The renewal of a joint fire services agreement among the state, county and local cities was approved at the Aug. 29 meeting of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors.

This agreement will cover three fiscal years, beginning with the current one, 2023-24, and will expire June 30, 2026.

County Fire Chief Bill Weiser made the presentation to the board. It will address fire protection, advanced life support (paramedical), technical rescues and hazardous materials responses.

“We are an all-hazard fire department,” he said. Later he added, “This is the most advanced fire department that I know of.” For fiscal year 2020-21, the first year of the prior agreement, the cost was $212.9 million, of which more than half was paid by the county’s cities for fire services. The first year of the new agreement, which began July 1, will cost $281.1 million. The county portion of the $68.3 million increase is about $34.8 million.

Much of the total increase will be for salaries, as the new agreement will have the firefighters’ workweek shift from 72 hours to 66 hours. This was negotiated with state officials.

Weiser noted that currently, Riverside County Fire Department (RCFD) staff a fire station with eight personnel per week, so that three are there every day. Beginning next year, nine personnel will staff each station.

During his presentation, Weiser said the current vacancy rate was 12.8%. But that does not account for the 73 new hires in July and another 24 to begin in September. However, he shared that in recent years RCFD has had to invest more in recruitment than previously. “In the past we didn’t have to advertise, but that’s not true now. We have a recruitment task force for Riverside County,” he stated.

The greatest number of vacancies is in the Firefighter II (paramedic) group. Weiser believes that during the pandemic when schools were shuttered, fewer graduates and individuals were looking for this work.

After Weiser’s presentation, there was little discussion and the board unanimously approved the new cooperative agreement.