IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
San Bernardino has reduced its fire department budget by more than $2 million, part of $22 million in overall reductions recently approved by the city council.
As a result of those reductions, Station 10 at 502 S. Arrowhead Ave. will be shut down, and a fire engine unit will be removed from the station at 2641 N. E St., according to a report in the San Bernardino County Sun.
To deal with the budget cuts, the department is trying to reduce the number of responses it makes to 911 calls by weeding out calls that aren’t life threatening.
To do that, it will hire three dispatch supervisors who will direct non-emergency medical calls to American Medical Response, an ambulance company. As many as one-third of the calls the department handles could be eliminated by using that priority dispatch system, according to the report.
In the future, basic life-support calls might also be routed to AMR if the Inland Counties Emergency Medical Agency agrees to that change, according to the report.
