Fire District Budget Meetings End With Slightly Higher Figure Than Previous Year

The last of three budget workshops held with personnel and board trustees concluded with positivity from both sides of the table.

Board president James Hickey said he was pleased with process, where fire district department managers spoke directly to trustees on why and for what exactly they were asking for funding.

“They’ve all done a great job in cutting unnecessary costs,” Hickey said. “Everybody’s looking at every penny because we don’t want to lay anybody off. Next week we go over salaries, and we’re hoping to keep it under $29 million (for the total budget).  And we want to budget in there if we will hire anyone new or not.”

A lengthy closed session meeting will be held during the Oct. 25 board meeting, where personnel salaries will be discussed, as will the possibility of new hires.

Overall, the budget workshops concluded Tuesday with about $6,000 in added costs compared to the 2011 budget; though the talks did not include salaries, which account for about 80 percent of the district’s budget.

Hickey cited two fixed costs stemming from regulations that contributed to pushing the budget above last year. About $100,000 in costs is tied to federally-mandated radio narrowband requirement. Another $150,000 stem from needing to update the Opticom traffic light controlling system – used to change traffic signals so fire engines can quickly get to calls. Acting Fire Chief Raymond Kay said the signal system lately hasn’t been working consistently.

“We see once in a while trucks getting t-boned going through intersections. That’s my biggest fear,” said trustee Martin McGill, who also praised the exchanges during Tuesday’s meeting.

The added budget costs could be defrayed by efforts of the district’s lobbyist Cheryl Axley, according to Hickey. Between the three meetings, Hickey said he found about $800,000 of budget items that could potentially be covered by state and federal grants.

Hickey also elaborated about a tax refund to residents after final expenditures for 2011 are figured. He said giving a refund, rather than abating taxes, will show a higher tax rate for the district than in the past, though he insists that won’t be the case.

“When you abate taxes, we send a letter to the county to lower by a certain dollar amount,” Hickey said, which presumably lowers a tax rate. “In reality we are not charging more money, we’re giving you the difference. The fire district accounts for an average $500 on a tax bill for a $300,000 home.  So when someone looks at their bill and they say ‘my bill is $7,000,’ we’re only getting $500 of that.”

Hickey didn’t offer an estimate on what the refunds would be.

During the meeting, areas discussed included HAZMAT, honor guard, underwater rescue, tactical rescue, hoses, breathing apparatuses, atmospheric monitoring and other small tools.

Kay said the board asked good questions, which helped him and finance director Kerry Sullivan better understand their goals.

“We have a lot of talented and educated people here,” Kay said. “I wanted to have the person who put pen to paper and submitted the original budget to explain. I have great confidence in these people to tell us where we’re headed.”

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