For Los Angeles City Council members desperately searching for cuts amid the budget crisis, the fire department emergency case engineer is the “driver”, whose main role is to drive the battalion chief in an emergency.
However, LAFD officials say their position is beyond that. According to LAFD interim chief Roni Villanueva, emergency accident technicians are firefighters and play an important role in regulating the response to fires, and losing them risks life.
“This will come back and bite us. It’s not a driver. It’s not a driver. It’s a heartfelt thing to do with someone else,” Villanueva addressed the city council’s budget committee at Thursday’s hearing.
Five months after the Palisade fires destroyed thousands of homes and prompted questions about whether the fire department was equipped to combat such a massive flame, the Budget Committee moved forward with recommendations to cut the position of engineers in emergencies.
Of the 42 positions, 27 are currently filled. These firefighters will not lose their jobs, but will be reassigned and save more than $7 million in the next fiscal year, and about $10 million each year thereafter, according to city administrator Matt Sabo.
The city is facing a budget shortage of around $1 billion, mainly due to rising labor costs, rising legal payments and slowing the local economy. Mayor Karen Bass ‘2025-26 budget proposal suggests that more than 1,600 city employees will be fired, but does not include the reallocation of technicians in emergency accidents.
The Budget Committee highlighted the growing budgets across the fire department, and also recommended plans for Nixing Bass to create a new unit of Nixing Bass, which would have added 67 employees to address issues stemming from the homeless crisis.
At a budget hearing on Thursday, Councillor Tim Makosker, who has two children, a firefighter, claimed he had cut his status as an emergency accident engineer and called him “basically an aide.”
When Villanueva asked Makoscar to spend the life of a firefighter, Makoscar said it was “incredibly valuable.”
“We can say the same thing about many of the 1,300 positions we are cutting, because we don’t do sidewalks, streets, curbs, ditches, wood trimming, light changes, or community safety,” McOsker added. “The reality is, you need to balance your budget.”
The Budget Committee sent its first recommendation to Prime Minister Sharon Tso, the city council’s top policy advisor. This will present the committee on Friday with a complete menu of strategies to reduce costs while maintaining as many services as possible. The committee is then expected to complete the recommendations and send the proposed budget to the full council. This requires final budget to be approved by the end of the month.
On the way to the scene, the “command team” consisting of chiefs and emergency case technicians is “responsible for providing direction for rescue of trapped firefighters or civilians, pursuing firefighters, and handling risk management in rapidly escalating cases,” said LAFD spokesman Colonel Eric Scott.
“The more complicated an incident, the greater the need for emergency accident technicians to promote emergency accident mitigation,” Scott added.
Greg Avery, who retired last year as the battalion chief at LAFD 37 years later, said in his career that the emergency accident engineer was called an aide and then a staff assistant. But Avery considered them more of a partner. The four EITs who worked for him often helped him with strategic decisions, and he encouraged him to question his decisions and offer advice.
“EITs just happen to drive cars, but calling them drivers is a bit sleazy and a bit minimized,” he said.
The EIT drives battalion chiefs into fires and other emergencies, but according to a video created by Avery and LAFD, they are working on radio to develop strategies to tackle the situation. They communicate with firefighters on the scene, firefighters, police officers, and agencies such as the Department of Water and Power and the U.S. Forest Service.
At the scene, they work with the incident commander to track firefighters and other personnel. The important role in a chaotic situation when forgetting a single firefighter’s location, both Villanueva and Avery said, can be fatal.
However, at Thursday’s budget hearing, Villanueva struggled to clarify what the EIT would do when he wasn’t responding to the scene.
“They visit the fire station and deliver the mail. They talk about the current event. If they need questions, the EIT will help them. They will staff them,” says Villanueva.
According to Avery, the EIT will serve as a liaison between the firefighter and the battalion chief. They can be related to rank and file, as they are firefighters themselves and union members, Avery said.
The EIT position was cut once before in 2010 during another major budget crunch in another major recession. The department has since added them.
Avery remembers working without an EIT after the cut.
“The emergency situation was very different and not that good,” he said.
Source link
