Whitewater Fire Department to officially become independent

June 30--WHITEWATER -- The city of Whitewater and Whitewater Fire Department are working together over the next several months to establish a long-term agreement that makes the fire department an official independent agency.

This month, the city council approved an interim agreement that allows the department to stand on its own starting Wednesday. A group of stakeholders will iron out other details.

Before the agreement, the city and fire department had a "handshake deal" rather than an official contract explaining the relationship, City Manager Cameron Clapper said.

Services and funding streams will not change under the agreement.

Volunteers will continue to make up the fire and EMS staff and cover the city and six surrounding towns, Clapper said.

The city and towns pay for department equipment and calls. The city also provides the fire station in downtown Whitewater.

The interim agreement ends March 1, 2016, and will be replaced with a long-term contract.

The contract is a "big thing," Clapper said, because it will make sure everyone is on the same page about what is expected from the city and fire department.

Two of the most important changes include updated department bylaws and a pay increase for volunteer firefighters, Clapper said. EMS pay would depend on services rendered.

The department has 105 volunteers, according to a fire and EMS evaluation completed in 2013 by Emergency Services Consulting.

Prior to the agreement, firefighters were paid $8 per call, regardless of the time spent on scene. With the changes, firefighters would be paid $12 to $13 hourly, Clapper said.

The increase and autonomy go into effect Wednesday. The changes will cost the city about $21,600 extra per year, a small sum compared to similarly sized fire departments, Clapper said.

The bump in pay hopefully will keep volunteers in Whitewater and attract new volunteers, which is one of city officials' concerns.

"We want to make sure we have a department that attracts good people. That's obviously the biggest reason for some kind of change for pay structure," Clapper said.

The fire department is updating its bylaws to make sure all volunteers, regardless of the sector they serve, are covered by uniform and understandable guidelines. The bylaws have not changed in decades, but the number of calls has grown to nearly 2,000 per year, Clapper said.

"That's a huge amount of calls received ... and it's still operating as it was set up to operate when it was responding to 300 calls," he said.

State law requires fire departments to have contracts defining the relationship between the departments and the communities they serve, but the city has never had one, Clapper said.

The fire department can either be independent or a city department, and Whitewater has operated somewhere in between, Clapper said.

Changes to the status quo were brought up about three years ago when the fire department approached the city about expanding its quarters, which were at capacity.

The city formed a task force and hired Emergency Services Consulting to look into the department's staffing and workload.

Under the agreement, the fire department will have a board of directors that will include members of the community, fire department and city council, Clapper said.

The city will provide insurance, dispatch and IT services, and financial management.

The decision to become an independent organization instead of a city department was a "compromise" between a portion of the fire department and city, Clapper said.

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