Redding has eliminated more than a dozen vacant police and fire positions and will close Fire Station 3
The changes were made to increase city savings amidst a struggling budget. Council members were united on fire department changes, but two were opposed to some of the police department cuts.
The Redding City Council voted last Tuesday to eliminate several vacant positions from the city’s police and fire departments, as well as to temporarily close Fire Station 3.
The decisions were made as the city faces significant financial challenges. Council members have been looking for ways to ease the strain on the budget, including by eliminating vacant positions so that salary savings can be utilized elsewhere in the budget.
Oct. 6’s council meeting went well into the night — concluding around 1 a.m. — as council members deliberated on how to approach position eliminations and other budget-related matters.
Interim City Manager Michael Webb gave a presentation during the council meeting indicating that the city would be in the red by 2027 if budget adjustments weren’t made and recommending what changes to personnel the council should make to address budget shortfalls.
Staff recommended removing 13.5 vacant positions from the police department, which includes a captain, a detective, a lieutenant, four American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA-funded officers, two general fund officers and four and a half professional staffers.
“The proposed vacancy reductions would allow the City to capture savings through the administrative removal of vacant positions from the approved budget while using existing resources to maintain current frontline operations and service levels,” Webb’s presentation read. The changes won’t impact the response time to priority calls for service, he added.
The anticipated general fund savings from cutting the vacant positions is $2 million per year, beginning in 2027.
The council was divided on whether to cut all 13.5 positions, with members Tenessa Audette and Erin Resner voting against two separate motions to eliminate the positions. They said they wanted to consider other areas to save money before reducing police staffing. Despite their concerns, the remaining council members, which formed a majority, voted to eliminate the positions.
When it comes to the fire department, the council was united in its decision to close Station 3, located just south of downtown on Westside Road, without laying off or demoting any staff. The closure of the station allows the city to save money by removing vacant firehouse personnel positions, Webb explained. Nine vacant positions were eliminated, including seven firehouse personnel and two fire prevention officers. The remaining personnel at the station will be utilized at different fire stations.
The closure of Station 3 means other nearby fire stations in Redding will have to assist with responding to calls, which will cause an approximately 90-second increase in response time in Station 3’s area, modeling showed. Webb assured that the changes will allow for three-person fire companies to be maintained, as he said a minimum of three is a vital baseline to emergency response.
The changes to the fire department are expected to save $1.5 million in the general fund in 2027 and $2 million in 2028, Webb’s presentation read.
Council member Paul Dhanuka emphasized throughout the meeting that the positions eliminated were vacant positions, meaning staffers were not laid off as a result of the council’s decisions.
Resner told Shasta Scout in an interview today that the city was slated to be almost $1 million in the red by July next year without changes, but that last week’s changes will allow the city to avoid the red while starting the process to rebuild the reserve.
“When you look at our 10-year cash outlook and review our Q4 report, it’s easy to see that tough decisions needed to be made,” she said. “I’m proud of our council’s work.”
At the next meeting, council members are planning to discuss an additional 27 vacant positions citywide and consider eliminating some of those positions for further general fund savings.
Annelise Pierce contributed reporting to this story.
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This is great news. The RPD does not keep anyone safe or prevent ANY crime. The police only exist to punish people after the fact, if they have the evidence to make the case or not.
” The RPD does not keep anyone safe or prevent ANY crime. The police only exist to punish people after the fact, if they have the evidence to make the case or not.”
Just the presents of a police officer and or Police car detures/prevents crimes.
The police do not have the power to punish law breakers, that is the judicial courts job.
A part of their job is to gather evidence and present it to the prosecutors.
It’s not 100% true that RPD and other cops don’t keep us safe. It’s only 99% true.
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Case in point: The Uvalde, TX school shooting in which a gunman killed 19 kids and 2 teachers while the local cops held their position outside for 77 minutes. It wasn’t until federal officers arrived and breached the entrance that the shooter was taken down.
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Contrast that with the school shooting in Bend, OR the other day. A local civilian ran toward danger and took out the shooter within minutes. That civilian has since made it clear that he doesn’t want to become an open-carry icon, and thinks gun control should be stricter.
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I can just imagine being the hero guy when the first Bend cops arrived on the scene.
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Cop: “Awesome, dude! Tell us how you took him down! Did he swing around and point the shotgun at you?”
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Me: “I don’t answer questions from LE except in the presence of my attorney.”
Reddingites rejected an increase to the sales tax that would have funded the vacant positions and would have kept Fire Station 3 open.
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You get what you pay for.
AND. Note to Newsom and PG&E… How about not bragging about up time while you’ve shut off the power on 1000’s of people on a nearly windless day?
If you’re referring to yesterday’s large outage east of Redding that affected all of Palo Cedro where I live and beyond, that wasn’t a prescribed shut-down. It was from a tree branch damaging a transmission line.
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Also, Newsom has nothing to do with PG&E shutting down power in windy, dry, hot conditions. That’s a business decision—PG&E hedging their liability risks. Nearly $20 billion was awarded to past fire claimants, and PG&E has already paid out almost $14 billion of that. PG&E went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy (in 2020) owing to fire liabilities.
“The proposed vacancy reductions would allow the City to capture savings through the administrative removal of vacant positions from the approved budget while using existing resources to maintain current frontline operations and service levels”. It’s worth highlighting WHY this is true. COR managers were using these open positions to offer overtime (the abuse is clear after review of the total pay of COR staff on transparentcalifornias website). Managers left these positions open because there’s no downside to them for leaving them open and passing out overtime (candy) to staff. Rather than demanding that the city manager confront managers about abusing overtime, they simply got rid of the open positions that were being used to justify the overtime. Glad to see the council take positive action, sad to see council fail to call out and address the underlying issue.
Good luck if you have an emergency in the Bonnyview area, Westwood village or Canyon Road and station 4 is on another call. Your next responding engine is either station 2 (Placer St) or 1 (Shasta St.). Trains occasionally block Engine 4 from from getting to the west side of the tracks.
Station 2 should have been the one closed as it was years ago.