By Tammy Murga
The pay is among the lowest in San Diego County. The morale is low. And sewage-laced ocean water has made an already demanding job even more challenging.
There has been little incentive to join or stay as a lifeguard in Imperial Beach. But city officials said last week that an overhaul of the Marine Safety Division, including salary and staffing increases and merging with the fire department, is underway.
A report prepared in October 2024 for the city by San Diego-based The Centre for Organization Effectiveness revealed that Marine Safety has dealt with long-term, systemic issues.
“Three reoccurring themes of concern came up in every discussion with the Lifeguards: salary, contaminated water, and low morale,” according to the report. “However, the unstable MSD (Marine Safety Division) culture will continue to impede the development of MSD leadership and adversely impact departmental operations unless there is a significant organizational realignment.”
Some members of the City Council did not respond to requests for comment about the report and others deferred questions to the city manager’s office. In September 2023, the council unanimously awarded The Centre a $93,000 contract to conduct the review.
At the time, Councilmember Carol Seabury said that because lifeguards continued to deal with Tijuana River sewage problems, “I think I’m for raising anything that they need to help them do their job better.” Mayor Paloma Aguirre agreed, saying that such a review would be “the first step in how we continue to compensate them and hopefully increase that compensation that they all deserve so much.”
Compensation was one of the most cited reasons for low morale, according to the report. When compared to 13 other lifeguard agencies from across Southern California, base pay for those in Imperial Beach fell significantly below the average. For example, the average at other cities for a seasonal lifeguard is $27.65 per hour compared to $25.40 for Imperial Beach, $36.10 for the average “lifeguard II” position compared to $30.06 in Imperial Beach, $90.70 for the average lifeguard chief role compared to $75.78 in Imperial Beach. The lifeguard captain position in Imperial Beach, earning $59.13 an hour, was the second-lowest in the county. Del Mar followed at $37.36. The average was $62.89.
The report recommended that the city raise the base salaries, a move that council members committed to last month when adopting budgets for the next two fiscal years. Marine Safety had the most notable investments, with spending plans increasing from $1.8 million in the current year to $2.2 million in 2026 and $2.3 million in 2027. Salaries for full-time lifeguard positions largely drove those hikes, which were budgeted to jump from $694,000 to $826,000 in 2026 and $877,800 in 2027. Increases of nearly $160,000 through 2027 for part-time salaries were also earmarked.
Labor groups representing city employees, including lifeguards, are wrapping up negotiations with the city, which are likely to reflect raises the city committed to in its new budgets.
The city is also negotiating its Municipal Services Agreement with the Port of San Diego, which owns the Imperial Beach pier and contracts with the city to provide municipal services, such as public safety, in the area. Such an agreement includes reimbursement for some of those services. An updated agreement should be up for a port board vote by the end of the year, a port spokesperson said. Part of the discussions, City Manager Tyler Foltz said, involve considering whether lifeguards should receive special pay for performing rescues in polluted ocean or river water.
Special pay was also recommended in the report. Specifically, it suggested a flat rate whenever lifeguards would have to enter the water during sewage-related beach closures.
The waters off Imperial Beach are contaminated with sewage and other toxic chemicals that spill over from Mexico due to its insufficient and outdated wastewater treatment system. Bacteria levels consistently exceed health standards and anyone who comes into contact with the ocean or the Tijuana River runs the risk of getting sick. Though progress to fix and expand treatment facilities is underway on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, relief can’t come soon enough for residents, beachgoers and lifeguards, who typically pursue the job because they enjoy being in the water.
Foltz said that even with improvements underway, he does not anticipate conversations about special pay to go away.
“We hope the water quality issues go away, but unfortunately, we’ve seen this same issue occurring for quite some time,” he said. “So, we are not putting a pause on those discussions. We think it’s important to keep moving forward.”
The ongoing pollution has forced Imperial Beach lifeguards to adapt. They use mobile showers that are attached to their trucks to decontaminate, dry suits to protect themselves from direct contact with polluted water, and boats as another measure to limit getting in the water.
“The water quality became like the blanket over everything,” said Marine Safety Division Capt. Jason Lindquist, who said he was one of the driving forces behind the report. He added that any agency can have issues with salary and organization, but “the water being dirty every day, and then the air now is also found to be dirty” has made recruiting, retention and improving morale a big challenge.
The review also highlighted issues with the division’s workload, staffing structure and training needs.
Lifeguards, who offer services for approximately 4 miles of oceanfront coastline, often assist other agencies, making the daily workload unpredictable, even with a drastic decrease in public beach attendance over the last six years because of contaminated water. From 2018 to 2023, visitors to the beach steadily dropped from 2.1 million to 694,000, according to the report. Lifeguards also want more open swim time and pier jumping training to grow more comfortable in their work environment. But due to water quality issues, local training is nearly impossible. The department has found a temporary fix by buying time to swim in Coronado swimming pools or training in San Diego Bay.
One of the report’s biggest recommendations has already been implemented: relinking the Marine Safety and Fire departments. And it appears to be going smoothly, according to Lindquist and Fire Chief John French. Lifeguard services were once part of Imperial Beach’s fire department, a structure that is common in some cities. But in 2015, the city decided to break them off.
The first visible sign of the transition is a new lifeguard vehicle branded with “Imperial Beach Fire Rescue.”
French said his goal is to create a more cohesive organization and bring the lifeguards up to the fire department’s high standards.
“Lifeguards always kind of get that reputation of being a laid-back organization and I just want to change that culture, while having people enjoy what they do,” he said.
According to the report, lifeguards expressed career aspirations that extended to other city departments as cross-border pollution remains a huge hindrance to the division. Per the report’s suggestions, the city is looking at increasing staffing and exploring more cross-training opportunities with law enforcement, the fire department and others.
The department’s systemic issues predate many of the current employees, the review found. But the appointment of Tyler as city manager in 2023 marked “a significant first step in mending that perceived conflict and the impetus for the current review,” the report added.
Its results “really validate the concerns” of the lifeguards, said Erika Cortez-Martinez, the city’s chief administrative officer, who added that the city is implementing the report’s most important recommendations.