Doña Ana County to present plan to aid failing fire districts

Sept. 10--LAS CRUCES -- County officials will present to the Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday a plan to begin addressing problems in six county fire districts that received failing grades by an insurance industry ratings organization.

The plans are more limited and less dramatic than officials were contemplating even a few weeks ago.

The county fire chief, Nicholas Hempel, will present a plan for commission approval calling for creation of an incentive pay program for volunteer firefighters, and an increase in spending on advertising and promotion to recruit volunteers.

Proposals to consolidate the county's 16 fire districts into a much smaller number, which seemed like a priority a month ago, are no longer being considered, though merging of a small number of districts may be proposed later.

Strategies have changed because of feedback county officials have received from the state fire marshal and ratings agency, but also because other strategies have already begun to have a positive impact.

"I'm feeling optimistic," said Ben Rawson, chair of the Board of County Commissioners, who was strongly critical of the county last month because of the downgrading, saying "as an organization, we failed."

County fire districts in Anthony, La Mesa, Las Alturas, La Union, Mesquite, and Radium Spring were given a grade of 10, the lowest possible grade, by the Insurance Services Office, an independent organization that rates fire agencies and sells its services to the insurance industry.

Doña Ana County Fire and Emergency Services provides fire protection and ambulance service to unincorporated areas of the county and municipalities such as Anthony that don't have their own fire departments. It is staffed primarily by volunteers.

County fire districts, like fire departments all over New Mexico, are evaluated every four years or so by ISO. ISO representatives evaluate a variety of factors that influence the quality of fire protection, including staffing and equipment, data on responses to fires and other calls, and the local water supply system.

ISO grades all fire protection areas on a scale of 1 to 10 -- 1 being the best. A grade of 10 indicates an agency "does not meet minimum criteria," according to the company's website. Many insurance companies, though not all, use ISO grades to determine premiums for home and commercial property insurance

Nationally, fewer than 3 percent of fire protection areas got the lowest grade, but in Doña Ana County 37.5 percent did. In New Mexico, 17 fire districts have the lowest grade. Nearly a third are in Doña Ana County.

Most county fire districts received grades of 5 to 7 on their most recent evaluations, which Hempel called "pretty decent." The six failing districts all received grades of 5 to 7 on their second most recent evaluations.

Insurance agents and homeowners in the six failing districts say premiums for property owners have increased 200 percent or more because of the downgrading. Some insurance companies are refusing to write new policies in those areas, which has caused home sales to be cancelled.

Fire officials say that the six districts received failing grades because they did not meet minimum ISO requirements on a single standard. That standard requires that at least four firefighters from the district, on average, respond to a structure fire. The actual way that number is calculated is complex.

The inability of fire districts in the county to meet that standard has two interrelated causes -- an insufficient number of volunteers and inadequate participation by existing volunteers.

Two proposals

The two proposals that the fire department will present to County Commissioners on Tuesday are intended to address those issues.

Commissioners will be asked to allocate $150,000 a year to create a volunteer incentive program that will give firefighters an opportunity to earn up to $6,000 a year for their work. Initially, the incentives will be offered to volunteers only in the six failing districts, but if it works the incentives will be available to volunteers in all districts.

The amount each volunteer receives will be determined by a point system based on different aspects of participation. The program will be funded initially from extra money received this year from federal government payments on tax-exempt land.

"The goal is to thank volunteers for their work and help it to be a little more beneficial for them to volunteer their time," Rawson said.

Commissioners will also be asked to approve the fire department spending $15,000 for advertising and other tools for recruiting volunteers. That money will be used to buy ads in local newspapers, create banners that will be erected at fire stations, and pay for inserts in at least 52,300 utility bills throughout the county.

The county fire department has 252 volunteers. They are supplemented by 13 paid firefighters. But the number of volunteers varies significantly by district. Generally, those districts that received failing grades have the fewest volunteers. When it was last evaluated by ISO, Radium Springs had zero.

Increased efforts to recruit new volunteers since Hempel became fire chief in July 2017 have begun to pay dividends. Since Jan. 1, the department has received 96 new volunteer applications and 31 volunteers have completed training.

Hempel said that the number of volunteers in the failing districts has also grown as knowledge about the problems have spread.

"We're definitely seeing an uptick in applications in those areas," he said. "Maybe they weren't aware of the need. Maybe we didn't do a very good job of getting the word out. As people find out, the good people of Doña Ana County are stepping up."

Consolidation?

In an interview on Aug. 14, County Manager Fernando Macias emphasized that reorganizing the department into a smaller number of districts -- perhaps just three or four -- was a key element to the county's strategy for improving ISO grades in the failing districts.

Consolidating the 16 districts into 3 or 4, he said, would mean each district would have a greater pool of volunteers to draw on. That would help assure at least four firefighters from a district respond to a fire in that district, but would also make districts better able to respond to emergencies.

"I have no doubt that our recommendation to the commission is going to be to reduce the number of districts," Macias said in August.

Since then, however, that strategy seems to have been deemphasized. Currently, county officials are only considering merging two districts -- the failing La Union district and the Chamberino district. The number of fire stations wouldn't change but the districts would be merged into one.

That proposal won't be brought to County Commissioners on Tuesday. Merging districts would require an ordinance to be proposed to change the structure of the department and such a change would require more work than could be achieved by Tuesday.

Rawson said La Union was still being considered for consolidation because it has had more difficulty than other districts in attracting volunteers. But Hempel said he is reluctant to make that change.

"I'm not going to rush into that decision," he said. "It's a big decision and it affects those people and that community. But, if in the next month or so we're still hurting for volunteers, then that's something we're going to strongly consider."

Other districts may be merged in the future, but a wholesale reorganization no longer seems possible. The reasons for that change, or even if it represents a change, are unclear.

Hempel said, "A wholesale reorganization was never considered." Rawson, however, suggested that the state fire marshal and ISO representative were not enthusiastic about that approach.

"It's a lack of commitment that consolidation would result in higher ratings without hurting other districts," Rawson said.

The changes that will be proposed on Tuesday may also be less dramatic than originally envisioned because one major change that has already been implemented has stimulated an increase in the number of firefighters responding to structure files.

Dispatch changes

In April, the fire department changes its dispatching procedures. In the past, only the closest station was dispatched initially to structure fires. If it didn't respond, a second district was called. That approach slowed response times.

Now, the four closest districts to a structure fire are called immediately. Since that change, the department has averaged 12 firefighters responding to structure fires, though they are not all counted the same way by ISO. Firefighters who respond from greater distances count less, but still the change is having a positive influence.

"It's had a tremendous impact on the service the citizens are getting," Hempel said. "It's also had a pretty good impact on morale. It's had a pretty good impact on how well we work together. What it hadn't had an impact on is people's insurance rates."

ISO has told Doña Ana County officials that it is willing to return to re-grade the failing districts whenever the county thinks the situation has improved enough to justify that.

Hempel said the ISO grader could come as early as February. He wasn't sure how long it would take the grader to issue a new grade after they visited. Rawson said he hoped "we could see those changes within the next six months."

Property owners like Alfonso Rodriguez of Leasburg, whose home insurance premium increased from $849 to $1,600 a year because of the downgrading of the Radium Springs district, hope he's right.

Blake Gumprecht may be reached at 575-541-5453, [email protected] or @blakegumprecht on Twitter.

Correction: The original version of this article inadvertently left the Las Alturas fire district off the list of six county fire districts that received failing grades.

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