County Fire is the 10th department at the County of Santa Barbara to have its inner workings examined with an eye to efficiency and performance, a review ongoing since 2019. County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig described the process of having to look at his department's flaws as akin to exploratory surgery — painful. He laughed weakly as he recalled having some "direct" conversations with consultant KPMG's staff: "Much as we were doing things right," he told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, "we can do things better and that's important to know."
Few of the findings in the KPMG examination were a surprise to the department; most just hadn't been a priority, Hartwig said, with the exception of some station-level information. The chiefs learned that the rank-and-file fire station personnel understanding of performance measures wasn't what the chiefs understood them to be.
"Okay, that means we need to do better with our folks who perform services and tip-of-the-spear interactions with the public," Hartwig said, reflecting County Fire's overall acceptance of the report's critiques. And the KPMG report wasn't entirely critical. It opened with praise for the department's sense of mission, cooperation among all ranks, and high morale.