The budget required to operate and support SMC Fire is $55,900,046 for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2025 and ending June 30, 2026. Unrecoverable costs in the approved budget are allocated between SMC Fire’s three member agencies as prescribed in section 14.2 of the Joint Powers Authority (JPA) governing SMC Fire: 60% to City of San Mateo ($31,047,477), 20% to Foster City ($10,349,159), and 20% to the City of Belmont (also $10,349,159). SMC Fire’s budget for the fiscal year provides for $52,264,552 in General Fund appropriations and $3,635,494 in Fire Protection and Life Safety Fund appropriations.

The total adopted budget for fiscal year 2024-2025 is $52.6 million, and the total projected budget for fiscal year 2025-2026 is $54.7 million. This budget will provide funding for core services at levels consistent with, or beyond what the three member agencies relied on when each agency had their own fire department.

Standards of Cover & Deployment Analysis - The Community Risk Assessment/Standards of Cover (CRA/SOC) assists the agency in ensuring a safe and effective response force for fire suppression, EMS, and specialty response situations. Creating a CRA/SOC requires that a number of areas are researched, studied, and evaluated. This report will cover an overview of both the community and agency; discuss topics such as CRA, critical task analysis, agency service level objectives, and distribution and concentration measures; analyze historical performance; and conclude with policy and operational recommendations.