By ALEX COSTELLO
The OFD is seeking ways to cut back on spending, which would be a financial benefit to taxpayers. On the list of initiatives are the "recycling" of chiefs' cars instead of buying new ones for every chief, purchasing cheaper engines, and changing the way spending is handled on trips. The department is also hoping to keep the public informed by creating and maintaining a new Web site, oceansidefd.net, and reminding citizens that all meetings of the Board of Fire Commissioners are open to the public.
"We've been taking a serious, hard look at a lot of the things that we do," said Oceanside Fire District Commissioner Joe Murello, who was elected to his seat last December. "We can either clean things up and make it efficient ourselves, or someone is going to come in and do it for us."
One of the goals of the OFD's new program is to streamline its fleet of vehicles, eliminating some and "repurposing" others. The department has already sold a truck once used by commissioners, and it is trading in its old personnel carrier. The department is also trying to sell the rarely used department bus and, if that doesn't work out, it may repurpose it to be a combination fire scene command center and a place where firefighters can rest while battling a blaze.
In addition, instead of purchasing a new truck to serve as a mask service unit (which carries spare oxygen tanks for firefighters), the OFD gave its district mechanic a spare Chevrolet Trailblazer and repurposed the truck it had originally given to him. "We took [the mechanic's] practically brand new 2007 pickup truck, put a plastic cap on it for $2,500 and made that the new mask service unit," Murello explained. "And that saved us, we figure, about $18,000."
The department has also decided to stop buying new cars for incoming chiefs. "From now on, at the end of a chief's year, his vehicle will go to the district mechanic," Murello said. "It will be evaluated and refurbished. Unless there's something grotesquely, structurally wrong with this thing where it's falling apart, it will go to the incoming chief.
"And these guys usually take pretty darn good care of these trucks," he added. "If this sticks, we'll be saving a fortune."
These initiatives are not exactly new, however. "That's been discussed over and over again," said Douglas DiCeglio, another OFD commissioner. "And this is the particular year that we decided to see if we could stretch out the longevity of the chiefs' vehicles, because they're very expensive."
Murello maintained that it isn't feasible for chiefs to use their own cars for department assignments in order to save money because not every family has two cars. Since a fire chief is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the use of a family car could leave the chief's family with no car at times.
He also explained why the chiefs need SUVs. "You need something that's four-wheel-drive in Oceanside," he said. "Not so much for snow. The high water, the floods, the stuff like that."
When a new car is needed, the OFD plans to buy a smaller model than the eight-cylinder Chevrolet Suburbans it currently uses. The department is also considering something more environmentally friendly. "I don't want to say Ford or Chevy now, but we're going down to six, nothing more than a six-cylinder," said Murello. "We're going to take a look at the hybrids, even though they're a little pricey now."
Another big change will come when the OFD buys new engines. Instead of the huge, ornate trucks it orders now, it will buy trucks that are smaller and less attractive, but that work better. "The mindset in the past has been, we let ourselves go to the old-fashioned thing where the trucks were sort of ornate, with gold leafing and chrome wheels," said Murello. "We're doing away, in Oceanside now, with gold leafing altogether."
The trucks will also no longer have chrome wheels, and custom artwork will be done away with as trucks are standardized. Exceptions will be made if specific firehouses have decals of characters that represent the houses.
"It's not the most attractive thing in the world, but we're now extending the life expectancy of these vehicles, in some cases almost doubling them," said Murello, adding that the life expectancy of the new trucks could be 20 years.
"The philosophy in the volunteer fire service is that they volunteer and they get all these extra nuances, gold leafing on trucks and so forth," DiCeglio said. "The truth is, right now, we're ordering Seagrave trucks without any gold leafing because that's what the firemen want. They prefer to have more of a nuts-and-bolts-type vehicle."
In both the short and long term, the department's Next Generation Initiative is expected to save taxpayers money, while keeping the OFD as effective as it has been. "The guys realize, if we have to spend the taxpayers' money, let's spend it on protection and training for that protection," Murello said. "Our duty is protecting the community, protecting our members. Not to parade."
Comments about this story? ACostello@ liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
