Watkins Assistant Fire Chief Brandon Link, speaking to Vance County Commissioners during the Monday budget work session in his capacity as president of the county firefighters association, asked for the county’s fire tax to stay at its current level of 8.9 cents.
Commissioners are considering a $57 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which includes dropping the fire tax to a revenue-neutral rate of 5.9 cents per $100 valuation.
But Link said that amount simply won’t be enough.
“We’ve incurred a lot of costs…without an increase in funding, we’re going to sink,” Link told commissioners.
“Our number one goal is to provide the best service we can to all of our residents,” Link said on Tuesday’s TownTalk. He discussed in greater detail the challenges the county’s volunteer departments are facing.
Link said keeping the fire tax at its current level would generate roughly $2,634,000, which would allow for a boost in pay for part-time firefighters to $20 per hour and provide $165,000 per department to operate.
(In the recommended budget, the fire tax fund budget is $1,914,678 and proposes to take $79,392 from the fire tax fund balance. One penny = $296,933. The lower revenue-neutral rate of 5.94 cents would generate just more than $1.76 million. Three cents could mean an additional million dollars of fire tax revenue.)
With its current $15/hour part-time pay, Vance County is at the bottom of the market, Link said. Neighboring counties are offering more money and Link said Vance County is getting out-competed. Warren offers $16/hour, Franklin is between $15-$20/hour, Granville uses a tiered structure that offers between $16-$18/hour.
“Four departments are about to incur $3 million worth of debt from purchases that had to be made to sustain the service we provide,” Link said.
When you add up $30,000 in truck payments, along with $13,000 or more for financial audits and $15,000 for insurance – per department – and fire stations are facing some hefty debt. “…and we haven’t even paid the first light bill or put a gallon of $4 diesel in the tank,” he said.
WIZS News spoke with Board Chair Dan Brummitt earlier Tuesday, and he stated that he doesn’t think any changes in the fire tax will be made before the budget is adopted. He added, however, that he and fellow commissioners had not reached consensus.
The commissioners are scheduled to meet again on Thursday and Link said he is hopeful that there will be four commissioners that take his side to keep the fire tax rate at 8.9 cents.
“We know that 8.9 is not going to get us all the things we need, but it gets us close,” Link said.
He said firefighters appreciate the support they get from commissioners, but he would like to see a compromise reached.
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