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Uploaded: Sunday, December 23, 2012, 8:31 PM
Updated: Tuesday, December 25, 2012, 3:20 PM
Price steps down, District appoints interim chief
Operations chief will act as interim chief
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by Jessica Lipsky
Photos
 
| After nearly seven years with the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District, Chief Richard Price will officially step down to run the PulsePoint Foundation. The District appointed Jack Barton as interim fire chief on Friday.
Price announced his retirement in January of this year but continued his duties as chief with virtually no pay and no benefits as a "volunteer." Barton, the District's operation chief, will begin his new role on Jan. 1, 2013.
Barton joined San Ramon Valley Fire in 1992 and has held the rank of firefighter, engineer, captain, battalion chief and, most recently, was appointed assistant chief of operations in 2012. He holds a degree in journalism from San Diego State University and is a California state fire marshal chief fire officer.
"Chief Barton has the skill set and institutional knowledge to lead the Fire District through this transitional time," said Fire District Board President Matthew Stamey. "He has full support from the Board and the entire agency; he is exceptionally well-qualified."
Formal recruitment for fire chief began in November and the Board is currently reviewing applications. The Board anticipates naming a new chief in early 2013.
According to a recruitment packet, the District is seeking a "visionary leader" with "uncompromising integrity." A salary is not listed on the packet, though Price's base salary in 2011 was $208,104, according to the District's finance supervisor.
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Posted by pillaging of tax dollars continues, a resident of another community, on Dec 26, 2012 at 12:49 pm 2011 compensation for Chief Price: $435,422. That’s quite a leap from the $208,000 mentioned in this article. Here is the link: Web Link
If you scroll across the letters at the top of the columns you will see a description of what each column represents. “ER” represents taxpayer contributions to the employee’s pension plan. In 2011 taxpayers contributed $149,475 to the Chiefs retirement plan. It appears that for every dollar of Base Salary earned taxpayers are paying an additional 75 cents plus toward pensions.
“MDV” represents the cost of health care: medical, dental, vision. The CalPERS Cadillac health care plan, for a family, was about $17,000 per year in 2011. The San Ramon Fire Protection District must offer the “Bentley” plan that comes with concierge services (including front of line privileges for all doctor visits). Many in this department are receiving medical benefits in excess of 30K annually.
Some employees are earning more in overtime pay than regular base pay. This has much to do with very generous OT policies that expand the traditional definition of what OT actually represents. See employees earning more OT than salary: Web Link
While I’m not sure who is charged with watching the store it appears that the tax dollars are going out the back door. These compensation numbers are ludicrous.
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Posted by American Freedom Lover, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Dec 26, 2012 at 2:51 pm Fire Chiefs shouldn't be able to retire and then volunteer for no pay for a full year. It's unAmerican. Price should go to Sweden or one of the other tyrannical socialist states where people do something for nothing.
Tea Party Forever!
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Posted by Concerned Danville business owner, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Dec 28, 2012 at 6:17 am Chief Price is taking the same approach as the former chief of the Moraga-Orinda fire district. I have spoken with several members of the rank-n-file members of SRVFPD and they are disgusted with the administration of the district. Morale is at an all-time low. In the meantime, these gold plated compensation packages continue to be handed out. Then to add injury to insult, the past election was an attempt to make a power grab of the board to insure continued depletion of SRVFPD assets and morale. This has got to stop
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Posted by JRM, a member of the Vista Grande Elementary School community, on Dec 28, 2012 at 4:06 pm It really is shameful, and worthy of a Grand Jury investigation. Our safety is in jeopardy because the "overseeing" Board has been packed with relatives for years (note to Jennifer Price) and they fleece us with impunity. Dick Price...you should be ashamed. Enjoy that 425K per year (fully loaded)at our expense for the next 30 years of your life. No more....we are now hip to the rip off and the firefighters should be aware we cannot pay for this anymore. I blame myself as well because there was no real visibility in the past as to the various election of Fire Boards (Roxanne Linsday, Tom Lunari) absolute collusion in the staggering rip off. Of course Mary Piepho's husband is a retired firefighter. They close stations, not change the pensions, yet their website has stark warnings of a wildfire...time to change the model and have them only chase FIRES not 85 year old folks falling at Diablo Lodge!
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Posted by Mike L, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Dec 28, 2012 at 10:24 pm Scammers:
My dad worked for the Oakland FD for many years during the 1960s - 1980s. He would roll in his grave to see what is happening now. In those days they worked many more hours per week. They were paid much smaller wages, pensions and could not retire at 50.
The post retirement jobs that exist now are a joke. Get the dinasours to retire and let some young people get jobs.
The older fire fighters do not give a dam about the younger ones, they are out for number one - themselves (look at CCCFD). These people make the more money than 98% of the public work force (lets tax them).
I had many friends that got hired by Oakland FD and I heard all of the stories. Most of these friends had either relatives or friends on the force that greased the skids for their hiring. I would love to see them do a real job for about one third the pay and see what the real world is like.
Believe me there number one concern is their salaries and pensions and not our safety, again refer to CCCFD.
Price should go to Oakland and sign a big consulting contract like the former LAPD chief.
Enough is enough. I would like them to roll back their pension formuala to 1.5 Percent (that would still be too much).
I can hardly make ends meet yet am paying for these greedy "public safety" jokers.
I used to respect firefightes but now despise the leeches.
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Posted by Young Robert, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Dec 31, 2012 at 11:07 am It is crap. These guys making over $400k a year put good firefighters with an actual drive to help their own community out of work because the district can not afford to keep paying these crazy salaries. As a young firefighter I was lucky enough to be make less than $10 an hour at my old department. And I did it because I love the job and I love helping people. Now a days, the only people interested in becoming firefighters are you g college drop outs who are drawn to the adrenaline rush because it was the same rush they would get in high school selling drugs or racing their cars on 680, and all they are going for is the payday. Morale is at an all time low because their brother and sister firefighters are being layed off right and left and the candidates with a drive to accomplish something big in their district will never have the opportunity to show it because you have captains making over $350k, chiefs making $450k, other Batallion Chiefs and district personnel making $200k for the rest of their life. I could bet for 3 people they are paying $1,000,000 a year in pensions. The district has over 100 employees, add on another $50k a month for all the diesel, and you're looking at over 30 million a year to opperate in the San Ramon valley. And no offense to the fire department, but they run maybe 1 real working structure fire a year. And maybe 2 or 3 large wild fires.
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Posted by John Angrytaxpayer, a resident of the Danville neighborhood, on Dec 31, 2012 at 11:19 am Ok. This is absurd. My neighbor moved to NY to work with FDNY. He works two jobs to have a decent place not in the Bronx. All your firefighters in small towns in the east coast like those guys that were just shot and killed were volunteers. Old school firemen that actually help people. These guys at San Ramon are crooks and I bet more than half are in it for money. Want to know how I know that? Watch their employees at any fire whether is be wild fire or house fire, you have a caltrans attitude. 100 guys on scene with about 30 trucks and maybe 2 guys squirting water on a bush that ends up getting out of control. I don't understand if its incompetency or no drive but the guys are all old (overweight) and have never really been nice to my mother at the nursing home. The salaries they receive is absolutely absurd when I wouldn't trust half of them with a box of matches or blowing out a candle. Let alone carrying my heavy ass out of my 3 story house. I'm blown away by the amount of money these guys make
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Posted by JRM, a member of the Vista Grande Elementary School community, on Jan 1, 2013 at 4:42 pm I believe it would be appropriate for a member of the leadership of the highly paid San Ramon Valley Fire District or members of the oversight Board to respond to our emerging awareness and concerns about out long term safety given the unstainable lucrative packages they are paying themselves. Indeed, please let us hear from you, those for whom we previously held in high regard. I have firemen for neighbors and I now view them much differently given the silence.
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