Oxnard-- The Finance & Governance Committee, Tuesday, December 13, approved the Wildland Fire Reimbursement Revenue appropriation.
The approval recommends the city City Council amend the fiscal year 2021-2022 budget to recognize $695,615 of general fund revenue from Wildland Fire Reimbursement and appropriate $370,128 to the Fire Department budget to restore its original training budget, improve and expand training related to mutual aid training, and acquire equipment and supplies needed for mutual aid response to wildland fire.
Fire Chief Alex Hamilton presented the item to the committee and said the action is an accounting cleanup.
“Originally, in our budget, we estimated that we would have about $1 million in revenue from wildland deployments,” he said. “Obviously, it was another brutal wildland season this year. Our estimate ended up being a little bit low, so it’s actually closer to $1.7 million in revenue.”
He said when the Thomas Fire started in 2017, at the time, it was the largest fire in California’s history, and it’s now ranked number 11.
“Whenever we deploy resources to outside jurisdictions, that’s done under the agreement known as the California Fire Assistance Agreement (CFAA) agreement, and it covers all the different entities and jurisdictions that could be…
