The Los Osos Community Services District isn’t making enough tax revenue to fully fund its fire services for the first time in 20 years.
A $280,000 funding gap for the 2025-26 fiscal year and more projected cost increases in the future are causing the Community Services District (CSD) to look at its options. The CSD is happy with the level of service it gets through the San Luis Obispo County Fire Department, which is contracted with CalFire, district General Manager Ron Munds said, but it’s really a budget issue.
“We know we’re going to have to do a special fire tax increase,” Munds told New Times. “That’s the only way we can actually raise funding to the level that we need.”
By shopping around, the CSD can determine exactly what that increase needs to be. At the district’s Sept. 4 meeting, the board opted to send a letter of interest to the city of Morro Bay asking to explore what shared fire services might look like for the two communities.
The Morro Bay City Council considered the letter at its Oct. 14 meeting, with Mayor Carla Wixom saying that she was concerned the city’s Fire Department was taking on too much all at once. The city is purchasing another fire engine, considering refurbishing an unstaffed fire station, and talking about how to increase its firefighter staffing levels.
“I know it’s premature, but a lot of questions, a lot of concerns,” Wixom said. “I see this as kind of a long-term project.”
City Fire Chief Daniel McCrain told the council that there could be benefits for both communities, such as having more personnel staffing the fire stations. But, he added, the conversations so far have been “high level discussions” and said he didn’t want to devote staff time to the issue without the council’s support.
Wixom proposed forming a subcommittee to work on the issue, which received support from other council members.
Munds said that potentially contracting with Morro Bay was just one of the options. Others include continuing the contract with the county/Cal Fire, contracting directly with Cal Fire, the CSD staffing its own fire agency, and divesting the district’s fire service responsibilities back to the county—something Munds described as the “last resort.”
At the Sept. 4 district board meeting, board members all expressed an aversion to giving up control over fire services with board member Christine Womack saying that if the numbers change, they could change their minds.
“We need to be able to control our own destiny, so I don’t want to give it to the county,” Womack said. “If you go to the county, you get the coverage they give you.”
The CSD formed in 1999 with responsibilities that included providing water, sewer, and fire services. In 2003, the CSD realized that providing fire services was getting prohibitively expensive, Munds said, and the county/Cal Fire proposed a contract to provide services that was less expensive. Currently, the CSD owns the fire station, engines, and equipment, which the county/Cal Fire operates and staffs with three full-time firefighters and one reserve firefighter.
As part of that local control, Los Osos is one of the only unincorporated areas of the county staffed by firefighters who are also trained paramedics, Munds said.
“But every other area of the county that’s served by county fire has basic level life support service, not advanced life support service,” he said. “That’s the uncertainty too. It’s hard to say whether that level of service would be maintained, without increased support from the community.”
While operational costs are higher than they used to be, Munds attributed the majority of the cost increase to staffing costs, including a need to staff the reserve position with a full-time firefighter and the Cal Fire union’s recent contract negotiations that reduced firefighter workweeks from 72 hours to 66 hours.
County/Cal Fire Public Information Officer Eva Grady said that change will be implemented over a three-year period, and ultimately the goal is to bring Cal Fire firefighters in line with the national industry standard, which is a 56-hour workweek—something Morro Bay firefighters already have. But that still needs to be negotiated.
With more than 15,000 residents in Los Osos, what happens with the CSD’s fire services is a big decision, Munds said.
“I want to emphasize, one, that we’ve been very satisfied with the service provided,” Munds said. “This is going to be an important community decision. … I just want to make sure the community stays engaged.” ∆
This article appears in Pets 2025.