Sliding back into school
Latest county work session ends without decision on move forward for paid fire department
What to do about providing better fire service in the unincorporated areas of Polk County has been a long standing question for both voters and commissioners alike.
Twice a referendum on putting a paid fire department in place have gone on the ballot, and twice it has been defeated. Plans have been drafted several times with potential figures for cost of staffing paid firefighters to work alongside volunteers.
Yet Polk County is no closer to having a paid fire department than they were when first looking at how to fund the issue back in late June after their latest work session on Tuesday night.
All but Commissioner Stefanie Drake Burford took part in discussions that lasted for more than an hour and a half and went through a variety of scenarios of how the de-
partment might be funded in the future if paid firefighters are incorporated into the department in the coming years.
By the time commissioners asked all of their questions and County Manager Matt Denton and Assistant County Manager Barry Akinson finished providing as much information as possible, commissioners were left ultimately with one decision: what direction do they want to take going forward.
It's a decision they have t o make soon, since they'll be required before the end of the month to vote on the county's millage rate for the coming tax bills, which has to be put in place by Sept. 1, and tax bills printed up.
The deadline for that decision is Aug. 30, and commissioners will be meeting that night to set the rate and also decide on whether they will choose to fund a future paid fire department under a number of potential scenarios all with different outcomes for the future of fire service locally.
If they vote to approve a special service district be put in place for the areas where the Polk County Fire Department is currently responsible for response - and including the City of Aragon - property owners will essentially get an extra tax bill in the mail for additional tax burden placed on each property based on its value.
That millage rate could be as low as one mill, or as high as four-plus mills depending on which plan commissioners decide will fit the best for the future of the department.
Akinson began the conversation with one undisputed fact all commissioners agreed upon without any doubt: the fire department needs some form of paid help, whether it be part time, full time or a mix of the two.
"I would hate to roll up on a scene today and wonder if anyone was coming to help me," he said. "It's a daunting thing to have to face, and I know I wouldn't want to. But in my mind, that's the thing we have to solve in whatever form it takes."
Akinson said the county will also have to make capital investments for stations as well.
"No matter how you put this thing together, or whatever the plan becomes or goals you set, we're looking at somewhere around five mills of new service that the county would have to be willing to take on eventually," he said. "So the issue becomes how fast can we get started, what does the first step look like and at what funding level, and then agreeing on an end game."
Akinson said the county still needs to figure out what fire service will look like five, ten and twenty years in the future when it comes to funding and what level of service the commission decides to fund in the near future and later on as part of that end game discussion.
He laid out several scenarios under which that could be accomplished, but never waivered from his ultimate point that without some form of funding increase, no paid firefighters can be hired.
Akinson cited first what the county needs in order to achieve the funding levels for a paid fire department at outlined in what had been submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA) in the SAFER grant, which is coming closer to an announcement as more information has been sought again according to both Akinson and Polk County Public Safety Director Randy Lacey.
Lacey, who in his role is also the fire chief for the current all-volunteer department, said it was his understanding in previous conversations the county was ready to move forward with figuring out the funding for the fire department and accepting the SAFER grant if awarded.
However J e nnif e r Hulsey pointed out that was under the previous plan to place fees on tax bills for fire service based on whether it was a residence, a commercial property or agriculture facility like a chicken house or barn, or industrial facility. Fees under the previous funding plan would have been flat for the categories after initially.
"Randy ( Lacey) definitely needs help and we definitely need to improve our service, but I'm not sure millage is the way to do it," Hulsey said.
Tillery added that "we have room for improvement, don't get me wrong, in our fire department. And me personally, I want a countywide fire department, but I'm not a point yet where I'm comfortable with the funding. Have we looked at every avenue within the county?"
"There's no doubt that we need it, and there's no doubt that our county taxpayers deserve it," Tillery said. "And I know that Randy (Lacey) and his staff have worked hard on it for three years, and a year on the application and working on it. But we went from one direction that unfortunately now we can't go, and I'm just trying to get my mind... I'm just not there yet."
That only leaves the option of the special service district and a millage rate increase, which the county would keep separate from the rest of the general fund balance since it would be specifically earmarked for the fire department.
So i f t he county i s awarded the grant and the commission votes to accept the federal funds that can only go to help pay salaries, it would require a 1.3 mill levy on local property within the special service district, which would be both the 25 percent match needed for the grant during the f i rst t wo years, and enough to cover the 65 percent match then needed in the third year.
Following that, an increase to 4 mills would cover the funding for salaries, operation and maintenance of the department under this hypothetical plan.
Akinson provided other hypothetical scenarios as well. The commission discussed funding levels of a single mill for just partial staffing in only a few of the stations with part time firefighters, to setting a four mill rate to fund the department without the grant and partial full and part time employees for each station.
Included in the variety of scenarios were plans to either move and replace fire stations, add new stations and renovate current stations.
Lacey said should the county choose to renovate stations, one that would require the most work would no matter the scenario is Station 8 at Esom Hill, which right now he said "I would not let my dog live in."
Akinson said one of the unknowns currently too is the lack of a fully formed plan for what to do about station coverage and overlap, considering that in order to get the benefits of an ISO rating decrease residents in the county, better mapping is needed to see what residences fall where as far as driving miles are concerned.
Currently, the plan revolves around planning stations within a five mile radius of each facility, which isn't the same as the driving distance.
Along with the mapping issue is also whether the county's proposal for the SAFER grant had been changed to comply with what Lacey and his staff had previously submitted and what later had been changed by request of grant administrators at FEMA.
Akinson and Lacey both were unsure of whether those changes had been made officially, which would determine how much the county might have to pay for salaries in the future for firefighters, and how many they might have to hire if the grant is accepted, if it is even awarded.
With potential figures for costs in hand and the need for more information, Hulsey and Scotty Tillery said during the work session they still felt like more was needed before they could make a true judgment.
However that was before the county learned that Tax Commissioner Kathy Cole wouldn't allow fees to be placed on tax bills according to previous remarks made during the last commission work session on the plan for a paid fire department.
"We were going in the direction of what those fees would be and how we would fine tune them," Tillery said. "But just walking out the door with this type of mill increase I think it would be a bad investment for our taxpayers because like what you (Akinson) said earlier, we don't know everything we're missing yet. If we start crawling into it, we won't miss anything. Whether it's a three year period or a five year period, hit the hot spots."
Before ending the conversation, Commissioner Chuck Thaxton did ask for potential scenarios on funding full time officers at a limited number of stations instead of the several options put forth by Akinson during the long discussion Tuesday night.
He added his thoughts too that something needed to be done to improve services, and it was time to quit putting the decision off or face another five years without the issue coming before the commission again.
Decisions over fire department funding have been on and off for several years in the county commission, which has sought to improve call times - currently averaging 20 minutes for a fire in the unincorporated areas of the county - and the ISO rating for residents, who in the area around Jackson Chapel Road are set at a 10 without automatic service guaranteed from either Polk County or neighboring Cave Spring.
The question over whether to fund the fire department comes as the board was also told in past weeks in the Polk County Police Department audit results that better funding for salaries and manpower needs were t he main complaints of officers in the department by an overwhelming majority.