Why The Cops Won’t Share

Every few years, there’s a flurry of interest in Mendo’s obvious misallocation of Proposition 172 funds. Then everything returns to the status quo. It goes back to 1994 when California voters approved a half-cent sales tax increase for “public safety” to compensate for lost revenues the state took a bunch of general fund money and gave to the education establishment in that downturn.

Recently, a new group calling itself the Mendocino County Fire Departments Association has begun agitating for its fair share of Proposition 172 funds. After all, the County’s independent fire districts are barebones, underfunded operations staffed by volunteers, and not all the money should go to the cops. Hells bells, volunteer firefighters are public safety, too.

MCFDA (McFuduh?) argues that a good chunk of the Prop 172 money — over $7 million for Mendo each year lately — should be allocated to fire districts that respond to over 7,500 calls per year, and that Mendo officialdom should reverse years of bad revenue sharing decisions.

But nothing will change.

Why? Because, essentially, County officialdom does not care about helping to fund rural fire districts when there are more pressing demands from County government itself for pension funding, particularly escalating law enforcement pensions, a separate rip-off we'll save for another day. The County's volunteer fire departments have no representation at the County level and the zero political leverage that comes with no representation.

One of the more recent proposals for giving a small amount of the Prop 172 money to fire departments was from the Mendocino County Fire Chiefs Association as expressed by then Chief Larry Tunzi of Comptche. In 2011, in the wake of the “Fitch study” documenting the fragile funding status of the inland ambulance and emergency services, Tunzi distributed a long response to the Fitch Report summarizing the situation at the time.

The problem is that the County has to provide some of the Prop 172 money for “public safety,” which the County defines as cops, DA, jail and probation. So far in Mendo, most of the money goes to law enforcement (Sheriff, DA, probation, jail), and the rest to miscellaneous departments and accounts that do not provide any direct “public safety.”

Tunzi and his fellow chiefs wanted a small percentage of the Prop 172 money to supplement the County’s struggling, mostly volunteer, fire and ambulance services. The Board of Supervisors could dispatch some of the Prop 172 money to Tunzi and associates tomorrow if they wanted to, but so far the Supes are clearly indifferent to the welfare of outback emergency services. In fact, when the Grand Jury brought it up in 2011 the CEO and the Board of Supes both said they had no authority to change anything, boldly and incorrectly declaring that fund allocations were the responsibility of the County Auditor.

In 2008, representatives from the Mendocino County Fire and Ambulance Services got a one-time grant of a few hundred thousand dollars, and the money has dribbled into outback emergency services whenever the Board of Supervisors is in a sharing mood, which is not often.

Then (2008) Board of Supervisors Chairman Jim Wattenburger (a retired Calfire Captain) said he appreciated the work that the fire and ambulance services do in this county. He said the allocation of funds was a good short-term solution. “I've been pushing for a long-term fix for three or four years,” he added. “It was well-deserved and well needed,” said then-Third District Supervisor John Pinches of a one-time allocation. “I would like to think that in a budget of $200 million, we could find another $200,000.”

Wattenburger added, “It's time that rural agencies and rural counties start getting their fair share from Sacramento,” but, of course neither he or his colleagues did anything in the way of follow-up.

Chief Larry Tunzi’s letter in 2011, however, explained why the Chiefs later abandoned their request for Proposition 172 money:

“During the early phases of the (Chiefs sub-)committee, the Fire Chiefs Association had recommended a revenue-sharing plan for Proposition 172 money. … The proposal was to allocate the annual increase in revenue to fire and EMS. The existing law-enforcement portion would have stayed constant (to meet the required so-called 'maintenance of effort') until the Fire-EMS portion reached a cap at 25% of the total revenue. This proposal was not pursued because of opposition from the Sheriff and county staff. The Chiefs Association believes but a revenue-sharing plan for Prop 172 money remains the most appropriate method for funding emergency services.”

District Attorney David Eyster told KZYX’s Valerie Kim last month (September 2015) about another major obstacle in achieving any kind of fair or legal allocation of the nearly $7 annual million: a comprehensive audit. Eyster said that he has asked for one but has not received a full accounting of where the Prop 172 money has gone and still goes. Eyster added that the $7 mil goes into a “misnamed account” that the County uses to then funnel it to the General Fund, so the County can’t say which “public safety” agencies get the money or how much. Eyster also insists that the accounting be retroactive. But, Eyster said, "there’s no point in acting until an audit is done,” adding that the Board of Supervisors has to require the Auditor-Controller to do the audit. Eyster also said that he has an email from former Auditor Meredith Ford saying the Prop 172 money is just dumped into General Fund, and that any Prop 172 money that may be going to Social Services should probably go to fire departments, but that none of his Prop 172 allocations should go anywhere but to the DA.

County Auditor Lloyd Weir says he’s provided all necessary accounting and that everything’s going where it’s supposed to, including the way the Supes wanted it to go back in 1994 when they first decided to give it to themselves.

If the fire departments have to wait for the Supes to order the independently elected Auditor to do something that should have and could have been done years ago (and probably has been done but probably not to DA Eyster’s satisfaction), they’ll never get any of the Prop 172 money and Tunzi’s original conclusion to abandon the idea will be proven to be correct.

We wish the new Association of Fire Departments all the luck in the world, even if their idea to have Mendo Officialdom do the right thing is naïve in the extreme