The Public Safety, Finance, and Strategic Support Committee met on December 4, 2025, to review two major items: an audit of the Fire Department's inventory controls over controlled substances and a status report on the Increasing Community Safety focus area. The committee also heard public comments during open forum.
Fire Department Inventory Control over Controlled Substances Audit (Item D1)
Increasing Community Safety Focus Area Status Report
Okay, welcome to PISVS. Before we begin, I want to remind the Public Safety, Finance, and Strategic Support Committee members and members of the public to follow our code of conduct at meetings, this including commenting on specific agenda item only and addressing the full body. Public speaker will not engage in a conversation with the chair, council member, or staff. All members of the Public Safety Finance and Strategic Support Committee, staff and the public are expected to refrain from abusive language, repeated failure to comply with the code of conduct which will disturb, disrupt or impede the orderly conduct of this meeting may result in a removal from the meeting this meeting of the Public Safety Finance and Strategic Support Committee will now come to order can the clerk office please call the roll councilmember Tordillos here Casey Mulcahy Kamei chair Dwan here thank you thank you so much we're taking a look at the nothing on the work plans we're going right to the consent calendars there are two items on the consent calendar do we have any public comments there is no public comment okay is any council member have comments or concerns on the two consent items if not would like to hear a motion please there we go we got first and second let's vote now we're back on item D1 is the fire department inventory control over control substance audit report and there is a presentation PowerPoint by the City Auditor Joe Royce, Allison Pauli and Maria Val. Good afternoon Joe Royce City Auditor I'm joining the box by Allison Pauli and and Maria Valle from my office. Also in the box is Chief Robert Sapien and Deputy Chief Steve Bowie from the Fire Department. We're here to present the audit of Fire Department's inventory controls over controlled substances. This audit was added to our work plan following a request from the Fire Chief in April after containers of controlled substances were found to be damaged and suspected to have been tampered with at a fire station. Following an investigation, the San Jose Police Department arrested a fire captain related to these incidents. Our audit focused on inventory controls in place starting April 2025. I'm going to turn over to Ali who's going to talk a little bit about the background and the findings and then we'll leave some time at the end for the the the fire department's response and then we're open to questions. Hello Alison Pauly from the Office of the City Auditor. Per the city's contract with the County of Santa Clara fire has supplies of two substances that are controlled by the DEA. These are administered by paramedics to provide advanced life support. The two substances are morphine, used for pain management, and midazolam, used to treat seizures and for sedation. These medications are ordered by the EMS division and stored at a central facility until EMS staff distributes them to fire apparatus. Our audit had two findings that focused on the two parts of this process, the management of the medications stored on fire apparatus and the central supply management. So our first finding focused on the fire apparatus. The finding was that policies require securing controlled substances on the fire apparatus but should be clarified to reflect current practices. The first thing to note is that we reviewed the controlled substances at 17 fire stations over several different days in summer of 2025, and we found no evidence of theft or tampering. A few key controls to highlight that FHIR has in place. Medications are kept locked and bolted to the apparatus. Paramedics are doing daily verifications where they inspect every vial on their apparatus.