Escondido, California. A Lake Hodges trail hiker managed to trip and break her ankle while hiking around Lake Hodges on Saturday. The 52-yearold woman who was hiking near Lake Hodges Saturday morning was air-lifted off the trail after she broke her ankle, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue personnel.
San Diego Fire-Rescue Department personnel were dispatched to an area near West Bernardo Drive between Andanza Way and Aguamiel Road at about 9:30 a.m., according to spokesman Lee Swanson.
The SDFRD helicopter rescued her from about one-quarter of a mile into the trail and took her to a nearby park that was used as a temporary landing zone after a group of kids playing soccer there was moved away at a safe distance, Swanson said. An ambulance took her from the landing zone to Palomar Medical Center. Her name was not released by officials. All in all this 'event' likely cost income tax payers more than $15,000. Since Palomar Medical Center is only two miles away, why did the helicopter land at a nearby park, disrutping the lives of all the citizens enjoying their time outside there? WHY wasn't the helicopter landed on the helicpad at Palomar Medical Center....this question must be asked and answers must be found.
Also, couldn't two men or paramedics in a stretcher simply walk the 1/4 mile to pick the woman up? Why did a helicopter need to be involved? Was it perhaps substantiating the exhorbitant cost of the San Diego Fire-Rescue's existence? You know the ones that are now constantly flying around in their helicopter disturbing the peace? Is this type of 'rescue' disrupting and a menace to the other citizens whose day off was interrupted by the war bird?
Here is some interesting information on how these 'poor' San Diego Fire-Resuce personnel get paid, ALL of whom should be volunteers in most mens eyes (what guy to you know wouldn't mind showing up at the firehouse once a week or once a month to shoot the shit, eat gourmet meals and maybe 'jack some steel?'
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/data-watch/sdut-firefigter-ot-2016jan09-htmlstory.html
PARENTS. Maybe like Chinese mom Amy Chua of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom fame, you should put all of your eggs in one basket and ruthlessly compete to ensure your babies become big government fed fire fighters:
Why I want to be a firemanMaybe you heard about the San Diego City firefighter who made $266,714 in 2014, most of that through overtime pay. For perspective, he made more than double what the mayor of San Diego earned. And the mayor has to deal with a lot of fires too. BTW, when was the last time a fireman dies fighting a fire in San Diego? Not so dangerous a job is it?
Man, did I ever blow it. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a fireman. What kid doesn’t want to be a fireman?
Who knew that if you became one, you could out-earn an IT manager. (Average salary: $133,700.)
Why didn’t my parents push me toward a career in firefighting? Why didn’t they start a fire in the house now and then and have me put it out to nurture my firefighting talents?
Dad: “Hey, I smell smoke.”
Me: “I’ll be right on it but I got to warn you, I’ll be racking up some serious overtime.”
Dad: “Atta boy!”
The website Transparent California annually compiles the earnings of government employees. Kyle Kutzke, an eight-year vet of the fire department, was the second-highest-paid San Diego city employee, trailing only Scott Chadwick, who’s pay and benefits exceeds $300,000.
Chadwick is a janitor.
No, no, no. I joke. He’s the city’s chief operating officer.
It’s not unusual for firefighters to rack up big overtime pay. The city’s Fire and Rescue Department has historically been short staffed, so it requires firefighters to work overtime. In the past, that method has proved to be cheaper than adding new personnel. However, a 2014 audit showed it was time to add more firefighters. Pension reform has brought costs down. New firefighters get 401(k) programs and not the more costly defined-benefit pension plan.
The report said of OT reliance: “This practice has led to overtime expenditures representing about 25 to 30 percent of Fire-Rescue’s personnel budget in fiscal years 2012, 2013 and 2014, and it has led to employees working, in some cases, in excess of 6,000 hours per year.”
Even though the department is working to hire more firefighters, the current ones are still racking up OT. Among the top 10 city earners in 2014, five were firefighters.
Still Kutzke’s overtime pay appears to be a record performance. At $210,000, it’s the highest amount among San Diego firefighters on the California Transparency website — going back three years.
The base pay for Kutzke’s position — Firefighter 2 — is between $52,704 to $63,600. With that, he couldn’t afford to buy a median-priced house in San Diego. With OT, he can shop for one in La Jolla.
So what did Kutzke, who was hired in 2008, do to rise to the top? Was he on duty on Christmas, New Year’s, Memorial Day?
Did it hurt his social life, which in the past has appeared to be pretty robust? He was suspended for getting drunk at a fire department training event back in 2012, according to a recent report by the San Diego Union-Tribune.
He was off duty, so he said he shouldn’t have been suspended for drinking. Um, that didn’t play. His suspension — though lowered from 72 hours to 60 — was upheld by the court. He actually tried to get reimbursed for lost wages, but he failed in that effort too. The city called him a “ringleader” in the drinking splurge at the training session.
Kutzke apparently made up for any lost dough. According to the department, he worked a whopping 3,866 hours of overtime in addition to his standard scheduled hours in 2014. That’s more than 483 eight-hour days …
Yes, the math is right. Even though that’s well more than a calendar year, firefighters don’t work eight-hour days. They work 24-hour shifts, and Kutzke worked 161 24-hour overtime shifts in that year. Without OT, a firefighter works about 110 24-hour shifts. That means Kutzke worked 271 24-hour shifts for a total of 6,506 hours.
“While this was an extraordinary amount of hours worked, it is every supervisor’s responsibility to assess their employees’ fitness for duty throughout the shift,” said Lee Swanson, spokesman for the department.
He noted how the department is indeed adding firefighters, but it’s more expensive than realized. The auditor’s report concluded that the cost of hiring new staff would result in a 2 percent greater annual cost. That, however, did not account for approximately $25,000 in training expenses. With that added expense, it will not be cost-effective to hire new firefighters for another five to 10 years, he said.
- See more at: http://ourcitysd.com/why-i-want-to-be-a-fireman/#sthash.4z9dFdth.dpuf
San Diego Fire-Rescue Department personnel were dispatched to an area near West Bernardo Drive between Andanza Way and Aguamiel Road at about 9:30 a.m., according to spokesman Lee Swanson.
The SDFRD helicopter rescued her from about one-quarter of a mile into the trail and took her to a nearby park that was used as a temporary landing zone after a group of kids playing soccer there was moved away at a safe distance, Swanson said. An ambulance took her from the landing zone to Palomar Medical Center. Her name was not released by officials. All in all this 'event' likely cost income tax payers more than $15,000. Since Palomar Medical Center is only two miles away, why did the helicopter land at a nearby park, disrutping the lives of all the citizens enjoying their time outside there? WHY wasn't the helicopter landed on the helicpad at Palomar Medical Center....this question must be asked and answers must be found.
Also, couldn't two men or paramedics in a stretcher simply walk the 1/4 mile to pick the woman up? Why did a helicopter need to be involved? Was it perhaps substantiating the exhorbitant cost of the San Diego Fire-Rescue's existence? You know the ones that are now constantly flying around in their helicopter disturbing the peace? Is this type of 'rescue' disrupting and a menace to the other citizens whose day off was interrupted by the war bird?
Here is some interesting information on how these 'poor' San Diego Fire-Resuce personnel get paid, ALL of whom should be volunteers in most mens eyes (what guy to you know wouldn't mind showing up at the firehouse once a week or once a month to shoot the shit, eat gourmet meals and maybe 'jack some steel?'
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/data-watch/sdut-firefigter-ot-2016jan09-htmlstory.html
PARENTS. Maybe like Chinese mom Amy Chua of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom fame, you should put all of your eggs in one basket and ruthlessly compete to ensure your babies become big government fed fire fighters:
Why I want to be a firemanMaybe you heard about the San Diego City firefighter who made $266,714 in 2014, most of that through overtime pay. For perspective, he made more than double what the mayor of San Diego earned. And the mayor has to deal with a lot of fires too. BTW, when was the last time a fireman dies fighting a fire in San Diego? Not so dangerous a job is it?
Man, did I ever blow it. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a fireman. What kid doesn’t want to be a fireman?
Who knew that if you became one, you could out-earn an IT manager. (Average salary: $133,700.)
Why didn’t my parents push me toward a career in firefighting? Why didn’t they start a fire in the house now and then and have me put it out to nurture my firefighting talents?
Dad: “Hey, I smell smoke.”
Me: “I’ll be right on it but I got to warn you, I’ll be racking up some serious overtime.”
Dad: “Atta boy!”
The website Transparent California annually compiles the earnings of government employees. Kyle Kutzke, an eight-year vet of the fire department, was the second-highest-paid San Diego city employee, trailing only Scott Chadwick, who’s pay and benefits exceeds $300,000.
Chadwick is a janitor.
No, no, no. I joke. He’s the city’s chief operating officer.
It’s not unusual for firefighters to rack up big overtime pay. The city’s Fire and Rescue Department has historically been short staffed, so it requires firefighters to work overtime. In the past, that method has proved to be cheaper than adding new personnel. However, a 2014 audit showed it was time to add more firefighters. Pension reform has brought costs down. New firefighters get 401(k) programs and not the more costly defined-benefit pension plan.
The report said of OT reliance: “This practice has led to overtime expenditures representing about 25 to 30 percent of Fire-Rescue’s personnel budget in fiscal years 2012, 2013 and 2014, and it has led to employees working, in some cases, in excess of 6,000 hours per year.”
Even though the department is working to hire more firefighters, the current ones are still racking up OT. Among the top 10 city earners in 2014, five were firefighters.
Still Kutzke’s overtime pay appears to be a record performance. At $210,000, it’s the highest amount among San Diego firefighters on the California Transparency website — going back three years.
The base pay for Kutzke’s position — Firefighter 2 — is between $52,704 to $63,600. With that, he couldn’t afford to buy a median-priced house in San Diego. With OT, he can shop for one in La Jolla.
So what did Kutzke, who was hired in 2008, do to rise to the top? Was he on duty on Christmas, New Year’s, Memorial Day?
Did it hurt his social life, which in the past has appeared to be pretty robust? He was suspended for getting drunk at a fire department training event back in 2012, according to a recent report by the San Diego Union-Tribune.
He was off duty, so he said he shouldn’t have been suspended for drinking. Um, that didn’t play. His suspension — though lowered from 72 hours to 60 — was upheld by the court. He actually tried to get reimbursed for lost wages, but he failed in that effort too. The city called him a “ringleader” in the drinking splurge at the training session.
Kutzke apparently made up for any lost dough. According to the department, he worked a whopping 3,866 hours of overtime in addition to his standard scheduled hours in 2014. That’s more than 483 eight-hour days …
Yes, the math is right. Even though that’s well more than a calendar year, firefighters don’t work eight-hour days. They work 24-hour shifts, and Kutzke worked 161 24-hour overtime shifts in that year. Without OT, a firefighter works about 110 24-hour shifts. That means Kutzke worked 271 24-hour shifts for a total of 6,506 hours.
“While this was an extraordinary amount of hours worked, it is every supervisor’s responsibility to assess their employees’ fitness for duty throughout the shift,” said Lee Swanson, spokesman for the department.
He noted how the department is indeed adding firefighters, but it’s more expensive than realized. The auditor’s report concluded that the cost of hiring new staff would result in a 2 percent greater annual cost. That, however, did not account for approximately $25,000 in training expenses. With that added expense, it will not be cost-effective to hire new firefighters for another five to 10 years, he said.
- See more at: http://ourcitysd.com/why-i-want-to-be-a-fireman/#sthash.4z9dFdth.dpuf
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