Police, fire gaps are self-inflicted wounds

Based on the information we’ve been gathering about the costs and overseeing of our public safety agencies, it has grown increasingly clear that neither the Barstow Fire Protection District nor the City of Barstow actually needs more public funds from a proposed sales tax increase, just smarter fiscal management.

Not only have police and firefighters received significant raises across the past 10 years, likely higher than most private Barstow employees have gotten, they’ve seen their retirement funds more than double.

Police officers and firefighters can retire at the age of 50, and if they’ve put in 25 years of service, they will receive 75 percent of their highest pay after retirement. This is simply an unsustainable public expense that is wreaking havoc on budgets.

Fire Chief Darrell Jauss and city spokesman John Rader both have argued that the agencies need to compete with other agencies in the region in order to draw qualified employees and therefore have to pay these outrageous costs.

That line of argument is ridiculous and ignores basic laws of economics. A community the size of Barstow cannot compete with larger communities in suburban or urban locations when it comes to salaries. Period. Every private employer in town likely understands this. We do not have the economic and employment base to offer what larger, more developed communities can offer.

Furthermore, why shouldn’t a firefighter in San Bernardino be paid more than a firefighter in Barstow? The density of buildings, the sheer size of the community, the heights of the buildings there — all of these things make the job of a firefighter in that community riskier than a job as a firefighter here in Barstow. If the argument here is that these public safety officials are paid so much to compensate them for the risks they take in the job, then clearly, it’s morally and economically correct for firefighters in larger communities to be paid more.

By the same token, while Barstow has plenty of crime issues to deal with, and our officers face plenty of dangers on the job, it’s still no match for San Bernardino, which ranked 16th last year in the nation’s most dangerous cities in one study.

This tax increase is under consideration not because our agencies lack the money to create new police and firefighter positions. It’s because they allowed so much feeding at the public trough that there’s no money left to grow.

For these reasons, we have decided to recommend voting against Measure D, the .75 percent local sales tax increase measure on the November ballot.