Below-standard response times, a need for a building inspection program and costly overtime—these are just some of the issues that the Salinas Fire Department hopes to offset through an infusion of about $4.4 million in federal and state funding.
The Salinas City Council approved the Fire Department to receive a total of about $4.4 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency grants, which would reestablish their Commercial Inspection Program and allow the department to hire 12 firefighters.
An additional nearly $33,000 from Cal Water would be used to buy video laryngoscopes, which according to grant language, would increase the chance of safe intubation.
The City Council approved the grants on Oct. 27 in a 6-0-1 vote alongside other consent items. Five councilmembers and Mayor Dennis Donohue voted yes, and Councilmember Tony Barrera was absent as he briefly stepped out of the room.
The approximately $3.3 million SAFER award from FEMA would allow for the 12 firefighters to be hired for 36 months while the city works them into their future budgets once the funding is up. According to a report to the City Council, the grant would also allow those firefighters to be trained ahead of the Salinas Future Growth Area, which would expand the population of Salinas and increase demand for fire services.
The grant would also reduce reliance on overtime and its costs by improving staffing. According to the City of Salinas budget, the Fire Department was projected to spend about $36.6 million in the 2026-27 fiscal year, with nearly $3.8 million spent on overtime.
The SAFER award aims to improve response times by increasing staffing from 26 daily personnel to 30. The Fire Department has a goal of four minutes to travel to calls, which they only achieve on about 40 percent of responses, according to a report to the City Council. They also aim to send 15 firefighters within eight minutes, which occurs 76 percent of the time, lower than their goal of 90 percent.
The re-establishment of the Commercial Inspection Program will be funded by a FEMA Fire Prevention & Safety grant, which will put about $1.1 million toward hiring a full-time administrative analyst and three full-time fire inspectors to conduct routine business inspections.
It will be the first time a dedicated business inspection program in the fire department has existed since the 2000s, when it shuttered due to resource constraints, a report to the City Council said.
A representative from the fire department was not available for an interview for this story.