At a time when we are striving to reduce our expenses as much as possible, I would like to compliment all of the City staff on their cooperation in digging deep to cut costs. I'd especially like to thank our Police and Fire Departments for thinking outside the box and coming up with ways to reduce unforeseen costs in Mobile.

When we did the development agreements with Montage-Holdings in the Sonoran Valley, they were to reimburse us for all of our public safety costs for several years. Now that Montage-Holdings has declared bankruptcy, we would no longer be reimbursed for the $1.2 million annual public safety costs.

Thanks to innovative thinking and the great cooperation of the neighboring Town of Maricopa, we have reduced the costs of fire service from $567,141 to $72,867 annually by having Maricopa provide the coverage for Mobile residents. It makes good sense, because with our mutual aid agreement, about half of our calls have been in Maricopa anyway. To take over the coverage, the Town of Maricopa will have to relocate one of their fire stations closer to the Mobile area, and we will cover up to $50,000 worth of the cost of that move.

Councilmember, Dick Sousa

Maricopa will provide our Mobile residents four-man coverage on all shifts. Since we have been providing two-person-per-shift coverage, our residents will be receiving an increased level of service with this new contract. Additionally, by bringing our firefighters up from Mobile, we will be able to reduce overtime costs. Altogether, our Fire savings should be approximately $330,000 next year.

We have already renegotiated our contract with the Sheriff's Department for Police coverage, lowering our annual cost from $648,000 a year for 24/7 coverage to $175,000 for 40 hours a week and response to all calls for service.

These new contracts lower our Sonoran Valley costs to $247,000 a year and go a long way to helping us balance next year's budget. My hat's off to Fire and Police.

Dick Sousa