How do we compare with other communities in San Diego County? One way to judge the performance of a fire department is to compare its responses during a specific period with similar sized departments. This is difficult for an area like Campo as we have a small population spread out over a large area. The chart below, from the March 22 edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune, compares the budgets and fire activities of several cities in San Diego County. The first interesting comparison to Campo is the Operating Budget vs. the number of Fire calls. With an annual operating budget of $5.6 million dollars Coronado responded to 238 calls within their city during 2006. If you add mutual aid calls out, their total responses for 2006 was 416. Compare this to Campo's 2006 figures, operating budget, less than $58,000.00, fire calls 304! What are the annual taxpayer costs in this comparison? Coronado, $214 per resident. Imperial Beach $73 per resident, Campo $0.00 per resident. With the proposed benefit fee in Campo of $8 per month per property, assuming 2 residents per property, the taxpayer costs to Campo would be $48.00 per resident per year.

Link to the complete Union-Tribune article