Almanor Recreation and Park District - calafco

PLUMAS LAFCO
MUNICIPAL SERVICE REVIEW FOR LAKE ALMANOR REGION OF PLUMAS COUNTY
District is run and managed by the volunteer Board of Directors. The fire departments are
comprised largely of volunteer firefighters, some of them with minimal or no paid staff.
There are several challenges to relying heavily on volunteers to provide services,
including 1) heavy volunteerism among board members can lead to burn out or a lack of
interest in serving on the board, which may lead to heavy turnover rates among board
members, 2) should long‐term volunteers choose to stop offering their time, the agencies
will need to find a means to cover the additional expenditures to pay competitive prices to
personnel, 3) fire departments are struggling to find dependable volunteer firefighters and
retain them long enough to capitalize on the time intensive training. Due to a struggling
economy, volunteerism is on the decline as people leave the County or are working more at
paid jobs.
There are several areas of planning and management practices where providers could
make improvements. Specifically, there is a general lack of tracking of demand and other
service indicators, which inform remaining capacity and level of services, in particular for
fire services. With regard to fire services, only Peninsula FD and Chester PUD track actual
response times to service calls. All other fire departments do not track response times for
each incident. Response times are the primary indicator of an agency’s ability to provide
emergency services, and as such, each of the fire agencies should make efforts to track their
response times and analyze the results to identify where improvements can be made.
CalFire which is the dispatcher for the fire providers in the Lake Almanor region, tracks the
number and response times for each incident responded to by the five Lake Almanor fire
providers. However, the number of calls provided by the majority of the districts, such as
Hamilton Branch Fire Protection District (HBFPD), West Almanor Community Services
District (WACSD), Prattville Almanor Fire Protection District (PAFPD), and Chester Public
Utility District (PUD), differed from the number recorded by CalFire. Fire providers should
coordinate with CalFire to better log and track each individual incident and response times
so data is consistent and accurate.
Pre‐planning for future capital improvement needs is considered a best management
practice, which is recommended for all public agencies regardless of size. With the
exception of Seneca Healthcare District, none of the agencies reviewed had something
resembling a capital improvement plan (CIP). CIPs can be tailored to the needs of the
agency, but should include a list of anticipated replacement and improvement needs with
an anticipated timeline for completion and a financial plan for achieving those goals. It is
recommended that a CIP have a planning horizon of at least five years and be updated
annually to reflect current conditions. An adequate CIP can minimize deferred
maintenance, ensure that rates are set to cover anticipated costs, and curtail the need for
indebtedness.
AC C O U N TA B I L I T Y
Of the 10 agencies reviewed, three maintain websites where documents and
information are made available to the public—Peninsula FD, Seneca HD, and West Almanor
CSD. It is a recommended practice that districts maintain a website where all district
information is readily available to constituents.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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