Cost numbers for fire reorganization work, county manager says
"The numbers work," McMillen said, summarizing an analysis of the plan he and his staff forwarded just before the
But "the bigger question the committee and ultimately the board [of county commissioners] will [decide] is, does it make sense," McMillen said, underscoring that elected officials have to sign off on a plan that calls for reassigning the
Suggested by the county's
Six of the firefighters would go to work for the
All told, the county would pay about
Meanwhile, rural residents -- essentially, everyone outside the city of
In practical terms the departments would need to recruit more than just two people apiece to fill the new jobs, as the idea is they'd have paid staff on hand every day to get fire trucks out the station-house door when 911 calls come in.
It will "take a number of people to make that work," McMillen said, adding that each of the volunteer departments would have to decide how to fill the positions and that it's likely some present-day volunteers could wind up getting paid for their labor if the plan goes through.
Officials would also set up a new volunteer department -- likely a reorganized and renamed
Its volunteer replacement would get the same complement of paid part-timers and a
Funding for the volunteer-departments side of the plan would come from the county's fire district tax, which costs rural property owners 6.4 cents per
The plan's volunteer-departments side would cost a bit less than
Officials will have to decide how to fill that gap, a question the staff analysis glossed over for now. There'd be enough savings on the county department side of the plan to cover it, at the cost of enlarging city residents' subsidy of the rural fire service. Alternatively, officials could tinker with both the countywide and fire-district tax rates, lowering one and raising the other to redistribute the burden.
But one way or another, there's enough money in the pot already to cover all the anticipated annual expenses.
McMillen wasn't sure of that until he and other administrators sat down with members of the
"Initially, I had some concerns, not knowing their assumptions," he said. "Once I understood their assumptions, their numbers work."
Among the assumptions is that the county would dip into fire-fund reserves to pay off a couple of debts, including one for a fire station near
The county also would give the Epsom and Drewry volunteer fire departments the same
Epsom is primarily a
Drewry would get a complement of paid part-timer firefighters under the plan, but Epsom wouldn't.
While the finances are clear, the practical effects on actual firefighting remain to be seen.
Advocates of the plan amongst the county's volunteer firefighters argue that the redistribution of personnel will speed the response to 911 calls in rural areas. But it's not clear, yet, whether that can be done without hurting response in areas closer to the city, particularly in the Goldenbelt district.
The county's service contracts with the volunteer departments are due for renegotiation by the summer and it's possible officials will "build in some performance measures" for the new ones, including one that addresses the service rating that insurance companies track to decide what to charge for a homeowner's policy, McMillen said.
Insurance ratings run from a meets-minimum-state-standards 9 up to a top-of-the-line 1. The city of
The rating gauges not so much the skill of firefighters as the resources available to them, most notably water-pumping capacity.
The Goldenbelt fire district is now a 6, a rating local officials believe "would remain the same for approximately 18 months" following a reorganization, McMillen said.
He added that the volunteer departments in general are trying to improve their ratings but have to wait in line for inspections to verify their progress.
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