Fountain Valley Not in Line with Brown's Cell Phone Goals

It's no secret that many cities throughout California aren't exactly lining up to go along with Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed solutions to the state's budget crisis. In Fountain Valley, City Council members rarely miss an opportunity to jab Brown for looking to eliminate redevelopment agencies. But on a smaller scale, the city's already going against the governor's wishes.

After discovering that more than 40 percent of state employees had state-issued cell phones, Brown is looking to cut that number in half and has already taken phones away from more than 48,000 state workers. In Fountain Valley, 71 city employees have cell phones paid for by the city, about 30 percent. The cost to the city is around $36,000 per year.

"We carefully look at the phones and at who has them," City Manager Ray Kromer said. "One of the things we've found is that at a small organization, if they have a phone in the field, then they don't have to come back to the office as often."

In Fountain Valley, cell phones have been issues to high-level administrators, as might be expected, but many of the other phones are shared by departments. There are two code enforcement phones, four Fire Department phones, and at least one phone each for the travel, engineering, housing and landscape departments. The Police Department accounts for the most city-issued phones, including one for Chief Paul Sorrell, as well as most of the department's detectives, four emergency dispatch phones and two phones for the RSVP senior volunteer program.